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THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
1
The Validity of Viral Video: Does it Really Help a Business?
Brooke A. Harris
Weber State University
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
2
Abstract
New technology has made it easier for companies to market their products online.
YouTube and other social media sites are great tools for advertisers. This study
researches viral video advertising. The subjects of the study are two successful
companies, Orabrush and Blendtec. They have both seen great success through the use of
viral video. But they started at a time when there wasn’t much competition on YouTube
for businesses. They say there are many benefits to using viral video: it costs less, it’s
easier to measure, and it’s easier to engage consumers in a conversation than traditional
advertising methods. They also give a lot of advice on how to get people to view your
videos, as well as how to get viewers to share it through social media. But the tools and
methods they used when they first launched their videos may not work as well today.
Getting a video to go viral, especially a video advertisement is compared to
winning the lottery. Getting a video to go viral isn’t as easy, or even as valuable, as some
businesses think. It is less expensive and easier to measure. But it still takes a lot of work
and there’s a lot of luck involved. Even if a video goes viral it’s not a sustainable form of
advertising. Orabrush and Blendtec agree that the best way to use video advertising is to
build a strong subscriber base and create content specifically for your target audience.
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
3
Table
of
Contents
Literature
Review
....................................................................................................................
4
Beginning
of
Viral
Advertising
........................................................................................................................
4
Need
for
Change
...................................................................................................................................................
4
Internet
Advertising
...........................................................................................................................................
5
Television
Advertising
.......................................................................................................................................
6
Benefits
of
Viral
Advertising
...........................................................................................................................
7
Does
Viral
Advertising
Increase
Revenue
..................................................................................................
8
Consumer
Involvement
.....................................................................................................................................
8
eWOM
.......................................................................................................................................................................
9
Viral
Defined
.......................................................................................................................................................
10
YouTube:
making
viral
easy
..........................................................................................................................
10
Supporting
Other
Marketing
Efforts
.........................................................................................................
11
How
to
Make
Video
Viral
...............................................................................................................................
12
Viral
Video
ROI
..................................................................................................................................................
13
Success
Stories
...................................................................................................................................................
15
Old
Spice
...............................................................................................................................................................
15
Problems
with
Viral
Advertising
.................................................................................................................
18
Stealth
Marketing
.............................................................................................................................................
18
Getting
Your
Video
to
Go
Viral
.....................................................................................................................
20
Research
Questions
..............................................................................................................
21
Methodology
............................................................................................................................
22
Case
Description:
Blendtec’s
Will
it
Blend?
video
series
..........................................
22
Benefits
of
a
Viral
Video
Campaign
............................................................................................................
25
How
Blendtec
Made
a
Video
Viral
..............................................................................................................
26
Reaching
Target
Demographics
..................................................................................................................
27
Getting
Demographics
to
Share
Content
.................................................................................................
27
Revenue
Versus
Branding
..............................................................................................................................
28
Case
Description:
Bad
Breath
Test
by
Orabrush
........................................................
29
Benefits
of
a
Viral
Video
Campaign
............................................................................................................
31
How
Orabrush
Made
its
Video
Viral
..........................................................................................................
32
Reaching
Target
Demographics
..................................................................................................................
34
Getting
Demographics
to
Share
Content
.................................................................................................
35
Revenue
Versus
Branding
..............................................................................................................................
36
Analysis
....................................................................................................................................
36
Limits
and
Further
Research
Opportunities
................................................................
41
Conclusion
...............................................................................................................................
41
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
4
A lot of companies are turning to the legendary powers of “viral video” to
advertise their products. Two companies, Blendtec and Orabrush, have mastered online
digital video campaigns. This thesis explains how these two companies succeeded in
creating viral videos. They offer advice on how companies can effectively use video
advertising to promote their products.
Literature Review
Beginning of Viral Advertising
Commonly, advertisers have always heavily relied on the power of word of mouth
(WOM) to promote their products. People are more likely to trust recommendations from
a friend talking about a product than a spokesperson or actor from the company (Toros &
Kalpaklioglu, 2011, p. 4126).
With emerging technologies, marketers found that online is a great place to spark
conversations about their products, which led to electronic word of mouth (eWOM), a
phenomenon that has exploded over the last decade. Internet-based advertising is
continually growing while the traditional advertising media, such as TV, radio,
magazines, and newspapers, are losing ground to the Web. “Technology and other factors
have significantly evolved and positively effect the way consumers use communications,
favoring rapid and efficient information exchange and interactivity” (Petrecu,et al., 2011,
p. 209). The aim of viral advertising is to make the target audience read, watch, and see
the messages and to position the brand in their minds.
Need for Change
The media landscape is changing; advertising has to change as well. New
technologies, expensive TV advertising, and changing demographics have made it
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
5
necessary for companies to change their advertising strategy from WOM to viral
advertising. Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) make it easy for viewers to skip regular
television commercials. Netflix, Hulu, Roku, Apple TV and other video streaming
devices and services mean people don’t even have to watch their favorite television
shows on regular network television.
In 2006, the Association of National Advertisers conducted a survey and found
that because of DVRs, 60% of advertisers planned to decrease their television advertising
budgets. A survey found that 70% of people believe that DVRs and video on demand
would reduce or destroy the effectiveness of the regular 30-second TV spot. (Greene
2007). Jupiter Media said, “In response, advertisers and television programmers must
devise new strategies for combating the potentially disastrous effects of ad skipping”
(Bronneneberg, Dubé, & Mela, 2010, 998).
Internet Advertising
Technological advancements make the Internet more and more appealing to
advertisers. Smartphones give people access to the Internet wherever they are. That
means people will spend more and more time online. Americans spend an average of
about six hours a day watching video; four of those hours are on TV. The remaining two
hours are spent on video games, Web video, DVDs and video on mobile devices.
Researches project this will grow to eight hours a day by 2013. The growth will come
from online video (Stelter, June 25 2008). In 2007 Americans watched 7.5 billion streams
and 16.4 billion minutes in total of online video. Children spend almost one-third of their
online time watching videos (Michael, Cornell & Nizan, 2010).
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
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The online video platform gives advertisers a lot more tools to work with. Online
videos also seem to be more authentic than regular TV. Tolson (2010) wrote that regular
TV broadcasts would never seem like ordinary conversation because it’s heavily
institutionalized. It doesn’t occur naturally because it’s governed by protocols and
regulations. The audience is also overhearing the message, rather than being actively
engaged as if they were watching it online.
If any company has a web-based presence, then the web is the place to do advertising
because that’s where their customers are. “The most influential consumers on the web
today are 24 to 44 year olds who embrace the Internet, not just as a tool, but as a way of
life” (Reigner, 2007, 447).
Television Advertising
Consumers are also paying less attention to television advertisements. Consumers are
exposed to far more information than they can process. On average, adults are exposed to
about 3,500 pieces of advertising information every single day (Stelter, July 25 2008).
That makes it almost necessary for people to become good at ignoring advertisements.
It’s also getting harder to reach the target audience through traditional advertising.
This makes online video advertising even more essential. In 1960, Proctor & Gamble
reached 80% of women in the United States with just one 30-second Tide commercial on
the NBC, ABC and CBS networks. To get that same exposure today, P&G would have
to run the same ad on 100 different channels (Keller, 2009). A 2009 study revealed that
the number of television advertisements needed to reach 80% of females between ages 18
and 49 increased from three commercials in 1995 to 97 commercials in 2000 (Boyle,
2003).
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
7
Benefits of Viral Advertising
Customers have access to massive amounts of information about brands, products
and companies. Advertisers need ways to reach large amounts of people, without
spending excessive amounts of money. Online videos are one of the cheapest routes to
go. That’s especially useful for smaller companies who can’t afford expensive
commercials. “Online video is acting as an equalizer by giving small consumer and B-to-
B brands the power of video once conferred on only big-budget TV advertisers” (Neff,
2007, p. 1).
Keller (2009) lists some of the benefits of viral advertising as:
• Improved perceptions of product performance
• Greater customer loyalty
• Less vulnerability to competitive marketing actions and marketing crises
• Larger margins
• More elastic customer response to price decreases and inelastic customer response
to price increases
• Greater trade or intermediary cooperation and support
• Increased marketing communication effectiveness
• Additional licensing and brand extension opportunities (p. 140)
Yang, Yao, Ma & Chen (2010) provided some more benefits:
• Information can be stored easily and exists for long periods of time online
• People can even ingest word-of-mouth marketing in their spare time
• There’s a strong sense of anonymity that makes it easier to communicate online
than face-to-face
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
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ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
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• Ads can spread faster and to a wider audience at a significantly lower cost
compared to traditional methods
Does Viral Advertising Increase Revenue?
“For decades, marketers have trumpeted the importance of WOM in influencing purchase
choice, but have still spent billions on brand advertising—without any proof of the link
between the two” (Graham, 2007, p. 427). Graham and Havlena conducted a study that
found online advertising plays an important role on consumer’s purchase decisions. They
found that advertising does stimulate increased visitation to the websites of advertised
brands—an indicator of consumer interest and involvement with a brand (p. 431).
Consumer Involvement
Viral marketing seeks to create a message that consumers will spread, rather than
the marketers spreading the message themselves. “It’s based on making consumers a part
of the campaign and aims to turn them into brand/organization/company agents” (Toros
& Kalpaklioglu, 2011, p. 4127). By using the “share” button to share pieces of media
with their friends, consumers become volunteer marketers (Jones, 2007).
Users have an influential role in online viral advertising. Customers become part
of the creative process. By spreading messages, they become “active participants”
instead of “passive recipients”. “The customer is always at the heart of the social
marketing process” (Thackeray, Neiger, Hanson & McKenzie, 2008, p. 340).
Messages will be shared about products whether from the company or not. It’s up
to advertisers to get positive messages out. “Everyday consumers are wielding greater
control over their media habits and their role in the commercial marketplace. Moreover,
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
9
with the growth of online participation, consumers exert greater influence over the
products and brands considered for purchase” (Reigner, 2007, 436).
Viral marketing works because it puts the consumer in control. If consumers do not
like the ad, it not only affects the attitude toward the ad or brand, but also their intention
to transmit the message. The consumer needs to like the ad enough not only for him or
her to buy the product, but also to pass the message forward (Petrescu and Korgaonkar,
2011, p. 220).
Consumers can choose to spread the message or not. They have the capability to
write their own reviews about products. Brand managers have to define what their brand
is about, because if they don't, millions of consumers in digital social media will possibly
in ways the brand managers don't like (Neff, 2008, p. 4).
eWOM
Similarly, Keller (2007) conducted quantifiable research on the importance of
eWOM and consumer involvement. He said eWOM works because the consumer has the
power. He found that “media and marketing communications have a significant role to
play in influencing conversations, with significant differences evident from category to
category, and even from brand to brand” (p. 5).
Companies have successfully utilized eWOM and online advertising to promote
their products and services. eWOM is helpful because it makes it more likely that your
product will appear in search inquiries, message boards, blogs, SNSs, as well as
increasing visits to websites and creating brand awareness. It has transformed into a type
of viral marketing (Datta et al., 2005).
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
10
Viral Defined
Golan and Zaidner (2008) defined viral advertising as content designed to
influence an audience to pass along the content to others (p. 963). The idea behind viral
marketing is to send out a piece of content to a few early adopters, and through the power
of the internet they’ll send it to their friends, who send it to their friends, and so on until it
exponentially grows. Jurvetson (2000) said, “The ideal viral product is used to
communicate with many people, converts a high percentage of them to new users, and
retains a high percentage of those new users. It also is used quite frequently” (p. 111).
Viral describes a message that is spread quickly and beyond the control of the
creators. “The analogy of a virus is used to describe the exponential diffusion of
information in an electronic environment”(Alexander, 2006, p. 12). Shukla (2010)
explained that viral marketing is the defining trend, despite the fact that it’s
uncontrollable. “As compared to conventional media, it requires less cash and can build a
customer-base with little or no capital outlay” (Shukla, 2010, p. 27).
YouTube: making viral easy
YouTube has made it even easier for advertisers to take their messages viral.
Millions of people use it everyday for entertainment and informative videos. Companies
quickly realized that it wasn’t just for consumers, but had a great use for marketers.
YouTube’s low costs, ease in sharing across platforms and SNSs, popularity, and high
entertainment value, make it a great resource. Advertisers grasped onto the idea of using
it as a video platform to showcase products and a new source for advertising revenue.
Three former PayPal employees created YouTube: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and
Jawed Karim. They activated the YouTube.com domain in February 2005, and uploaded
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
11
the first video onto the site on April 23, 2005. Within a matter of months, YouTube had
become one of the fastest-growing websites in the world. By the summer of 2006 (just
six months after launch of the site) 60-100 million clips were being viewed daily on
YouTube and 65,000 video being uploaded onto the site every 24 hours. (Kim, 2012)
Because it’s free and accessible to anyone it has become very popular. For
businesses, it is very simple and has low management costs. YouTube’s cost to benefit
ratio is the main reason the advertising industry has taken hold of it (Yu & Sung, 2010).
Not only that, but the videos can easily be shared among different platforms like blogs,
SNS, email and online articles. It’s so much easier to view and share unfiltered content
compared to traditional media. Even though a lot of content posted on YouTube does
come from other media, like TV, users enjoy it more when they watch it on YouTube
(Pry, 2009).
According to Fulgoni (2007), people who use YouTube are more receptive to
advertising messages than non-users. They also believe that advertising for a product on
YouTube is just as trustworthy as other traditional advertising media. He even reported
that consumers trust the advertising from user-generated content (UCG) websites like
YouTube more than radio and outdoor advertising (p. 7).
Supporting Other Marketing Efforts
YouTube is used best when in conjunction with other mediums. Keller (2009)
suggests that marketers evaluate all the different communication possibilities. All the
mediums should work together towards the same goal of the company, whether to build
awareness or drive sales.
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
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ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
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On-line ads and videos permit highly targeted, timely messages that can extend
the creative or legal restrictions of traditional print and broadcast media to
persuasively communicate brand positioning and elicit positive judgments and
feelings. Attention-getting on-line ads and videos can drive consumers to a
brand’s website where they can learn and experience more about the brand (p.
146-147).
YouTube, out-of-home advertising, and traditional broadcast advertising must
work together to promote the product. This media convergence is best done when
YouTube is used as a stepping-stone to other mainstream media (Kim, 2012).
YouTube managers also saw the potential revenue from advertisers. With Google
Inc.’s acquisition of YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion, YouTube became even
more ad-friendly. YouTube introduced several tools to help advertisers such as Video
Identification (Video ID), a software to help copyright holders more easily find and
identify copyright infringements and ContentID, which catches copyrighted music in
videos (YouTube, 2010).
In March 2009, YouTube also started making money by selling banner
advertisements, featured videos and promoted videos. This shows a slow shift in the
evolution of YouTube “from an amateur-driven medium to a professional- dominated
channel coexists with the market expansion of the TV industry into the web” (p. 61). This
commercialization just intensifies YouTube’s identity as a very ad-friendly medium
(Andrejevic, 2009).
How to Make Video Viral
Dr. Ralph Wilson (2012) introduced six factors that influence viral marketing:
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
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• Offering valuable products and services
• Providing efficient means for communications
• Utilizing larger-scale spreading of information
• Making efficient use of public positivisms and behaviors, establishing
communication networks, and sharing resources of the others.
In order for a viral marketing campaign to be successful, it needs to encourage
individual consumers to forward the message to others. The Internet makes it easy to do
this. One person has the potential to easily share a message with hundreds, if not
thousands of new subjects. “The Internet allows significantly more interaction, targeted
communication, increased reach, and better evaluation of the results, all at a low cost”
(Petrescu and Korgaonkar, 2011, p. 217).
Golan and Zaidner (2008) conducted one of the first empirical studies on viral
advertising. They defined viral advertising as “unpaid peer-to-peer communication of
provocative content originating from an identified sponsor using the Internet to persuade
or influence an audience to pass along the content to others” (p. 963). They analyzed 360
viral advertisements to try and understand the creative advertising appeals and strategies
used in viral ads. They found that humor and sexuality were the main appeals (p. 963).
This agrees with Petrescu and Korgaonkar who found that most viral ads have
distinct characteristics when compared to traditional advertising, such as a catchy
message, controversy, entertainment, and higher engagement levels, usually associated
with humorous appeals (2011, p. 220).
Viral advertising is great for small business and low budget campaigns. The best
viral ads are not always the highest production quality. One of the best examples is when
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
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Doritos sponsored a contest where consumers could create their own 30-second spot for
Doritos. Viewers voted on their favorite one and the winning commercial aired during
the 2007 Super Bowl (XLI). A college student from a small town in Utah won the
contest (Thackeray et. Al, 2008, p. 340).
Ads have the highest impact on consumers when “they are focused on
entertaining and engaging the customer, rather than presenting a call to action.” Viral
advertising focuses on generating product or brand awareness, not on transmitting
traditional advertising messages or a list of information about the product (Petrescu and
Korgaonkar, 2011, p. 222). Viral advertisements do well because they don’t appear to be
selling anything. They aren’t pushy and they’re unobtrusive. Consumers become
voluntary viewers because they often choose to view the YouTube video advertisements.
World-renowned companies, such as Nike or Budweiser, have successfully used
viral advertising in social media, YouTube, Facebook, and blogs “consumers value the
non-commercial, non-imposed, personal sources of advertising information and peer-to-peer
communication much better than the paid ads” (Petrescu and Korgaonkar, 2011, p.
209).
Kevin Allocca, YouTube's trends manager said a video goes viral because of
tastemakers, communities of participation, and unexpectedness. First, you have to have a
key influencer (tastemaker) share the video with a large community of followers, who
then shares it with their social media community until it creates a viral effect. People
become a part of the phenomenon by spreading it. He said the most popular videos also
have a high degree of unexpectedness. Videos have to be truly unique and unexpected to
stand out (Ted Talks.com, Filmed Nov 2011, posted February 2012).
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VALIDITY
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VIRAL:
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REALLY
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BUSINESS?
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Viral Video ROI
Because viral videos are more inclined to be entertaining then selling, the debate is
whether or not these online videos actually bring in revenue, or just promote awareness
and branding. O’Leary (2010) cites the example of Microsoft’s Project Natal, code name
for a new Xbox 360 user interface technology. Microsoft released a video about it before
the product was released. Xbox.com had more than 825,000 visitors in one week.
Project Natal also became the No. 1 search term on Google and trending topic on Twitter.
(p. 2) That’s just one example of how YouTube made the rendition of viral marketing
with videos even easier.
Success Stories
Many companies, like Microsoft, Philips, Sony, Ford, BMW, and Procter &
Gamble have seen success from viral advertising on YouTube (Van der Lans et al.,
2010). Advertising Age listed the Top Ten Viral Campaigns in 2011 as:
• Volkswagen, “The Force”
• T-Mobile, “Royal Wedding”
• Apple, “Introducing iPhone”
• Dirt Devil, “You Know When It’s
the Devil”
• Old Spice “New Old Spice Guy
Fabio”
• Old Spice, “Old Spice Man is Back”
• Fiat, “Life is Best When Driven”
• Chrysler “Imported From Detroit”
• Google, “The Web is What You
Make of It”
• Adidas, “All In”
Old Spice
One of the most successful viral video advertising stories is the Case of Old Spice.
In the early 2000s Old Spice sales were declining, especially when it came to younger
THE
VALIDITY
OF
VIRAL:
DOES
VIDEO
ADVERTISING
REALLY
HELP
A
BUSINESS?
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demographics. At the same time the market for male grooming products like body sprays
and body washes were growing. P&G’s market research saw this as a huge growth
opportunity. Marketers knew they would have to reimage the brand known as “old” and
“meant for grandfathers”, to one meant for a younger generation. Their goal was to
change the brand image with men aged 18-35. But they knew that their target audience
had to include women who had a big influence in men’s purchasing of grooming products
(Mills 2012).
Proctor & Gamble started brand repositioning with ‘The Man Your Man Could
Smell Like’ campaign. The approach of ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’
campaign was to embrace the brand's heritage while updating the messaging and imagery
with more ‘swagger’ and timely humor (Mills, 2012, p. 164). They wanted someone men
and women would both like. Funny guy Isaiah Mustafa, actor and former NFL receiver,
became the face of the new Old Spice campaign. “He was a ‘ladies' man’ who was ‘OK’
for men to love as well” (p. 165). The first commercial aired during Super Bowl in
February 2010 then was put on YouTube. It got 16 million views on YouTube in the first
5 months. Market share losses were completely reversed. Sales of body wash increased
107% by July 2010 (p. 165).
The Proctor & Gamble Co. brand has continued to gain market share. As of July 18
[2010], Old Spice, with 94 million views, had become the No. 1 all-time most-viewed
sponsored channel on YouTube, Mr. Norton said. Old Spice had eight of the top 11 most-popular
videos on YouTube on July 16. In the six days following the start of Mr.
Mustafa's personalized videos, he reached more than 100 million followers. Old Spice
got more than 80,000 Twitter followers (finally ahead of Mr. Mustafa's own follower
THE
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base of 30,000) and its Facebook fan base to 630,000. Facebook fan interaction jumped
800% since the launch of the personalized videos (Neff, 2010b, p. 2).
Not only that, but it increased the company’s web presence. “Google Trends data
show the ad has generated more search on the phrase "Old Spice" than anything the brand
has done since 2004. Unilever picked up 5 share points in the four weeks ended Feb. 21
(Neff, 2010a).
There are many other online viral advertising success stories. Ad agency Crispin
Porter + Bogusky, launched a video online advertising Burger King’s TenderCrisp
chicken sandwich called ‘Subservient Chicken’. The video was released solely online. It
got hundreds of millions of views, which means it got a far better reach than a regular
television advertisement, for a lot less money (Wasserman, 2009).
In order to promote its new Bluetooth headsets, Cardo Systems released three
low-tech videos of people trying to use power from their cell phones to pop popcorn.
The videos went viral. Cardo Systems says that in less then one month, the ads had been
viewed more than 10.2 million times. A Cardo rep said their Web site traffic double in
response to the campaign (A Viral Campaign with Pop, 2008).
Unilever is a great model for successful viral videos. In October 2006, Unilever
launch a viral video, ‘Dove Evolution’ for its Real Beauty campaign. The 75-second film
shows a time lapse of all the hair, makeup and touchups on Photoshop that are done to a
model for before the photograph of her is put on a billboard. Within ten days, the video
had more than 2.3 million views. Dove’s website also got three times the traffic after the
video than after its Super Bowl commercial (Van der Lans et al., 2010, p. 348). The video
has more than 400 million views from TV news, talk shows, and other forums. The key
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to getting the most out of a company’s online efforts is getting other websites and media
to pick up your video (Neff, 2008, p. 3).
Problems with Viral Advertising
But YouTube doesn’t always mean success. “For every big success-such as
Unilever's Dove ‘Evolution’ or Nike's Ronaldinho videos-there are thousands of
wannabes lodged deep in the long tails of viewership lists.” (Neff, 2007, p. 2). Cutler
(2009) says there is a big difference between creating a video campaign with the hopes of
going viral, and actually getting the target audience to embrace it and share it.
Cutler (2009) says one million is the magic number signaling a campaign that the
target audience embraces. Cutler also said that the videos should get of most the views in
the initial growth phase to be successful. “We've discovered viral video ad campaigns
tend to hit the ground running--they average 35 % of their total viewership during their
first week. This initial growth phase is likely to set the campaign's overall trajectory” (p.
42). We’ll define viral videos as ones that received more than a million views in one
week and videos that were shared through social media.
“Hit’s don’t always lead to revenue," said Jonah Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed, the
much-talked-bout purveyor of memes and, now, technology, politics and culture news.
"It's a paradox of online publishing that the moments that generate the most excitement
and traffic usually yield the lowest ad rates or go unsold" (Creamer, 2012, p. 4).
Advertisements have to be sponsored as a featured or promoted video to get
noticed. “As YouTube moves to monetize its traffic through paid advertising and
consumer-advocacy groups start to circle the wagons, the days of the viral-video universe
as marketers' playground could soon be over” (Atkinson, 2006, p. 1).
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There’s also a concern about stealth marketing. Gary Ruskin, executive director
of Commercial Alert, thinks viral videos blur ethical lines because viewers often don’t
know they’re being marketed to. “Viral videos are akin to social networks, which can be
deceptive because users don't know with whom they're interacting” (Atkinson, 2006, p.1).
Stealth Marketing
Unlike television advertisements, the Federal Communication Commission in
America does not regulate viral advertising. That allows the content to be free of
constraints and restrictions (Porter and Golan, 2006, p. 12). On December 11, 2006, the
Federal Trade Commission issued a statement that the relationship between sponsors and
people paid to promote products to their peers must be disclosed (Annys, 2007).
“Viral stealth marketing seeks to disguise the relationship between the
individual(s) conveying the message and the organization endorsing it. Thus, a more
subtle form of communication ensues which reaches consumers on a more personal level
to influence their buying behaviour” (Swanepoel, Lye, Rugimbana, 2009, p. 9).
Consumers seem more tolerant towards advertisements containing entertaining
content that stretches the truth. Brands like Nike, Gatorade and Levi’s have been
successful in creating videos that imitate YouTube’s amateur feel. “The advantages of
this approach: unbranded videos typically fare better than run-of-the-mill TV
commercials. The back-and-forth over authenticity fuels interest, particularly among
media-savvy young consumers” (Morrissey, 2008, p. 1).
Stealth marketing is non-transparent. And CSG multi-media websites like
YouTube and SNS like Facebook make it so easy for stealth marketers to benefit on its
appeared impartiality. Tobacco companies have been known to take advantage of viral
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stealth marketing (VSM) by promoting tobacco products without disclosing the company
(Swanepoel, Lye, Rugimbana, 2009, p.13). “The nature of VSM seeks to present the
marketing message as spontaneous and unsolicited, whilst disguising the true
promotional source behind the campaign” (p. 14).
Getting Your Video to Go Viral
Despite all the downsides of viral, how do you get your video to go viral? By
analyzing successful campaigns, Mills (2012) found four drivers of success: “the
spreadability of content based on personal factors, the propagativity of content based on
media type, the integration of multiple media platforms and the successive reinforcement
of messaging” (p. 166).
The ads have to resonate with the target audience. “A viral marketing campaign
has a greater chance of success if the marketer is able to develop marketing
communication strategies that resonate with the target group — in other words, appeals to
the key motivations for sharing information” (Ho & Dempsey, 2010, p. 1005). The ad
needs to grab viewer’s attention. Advertisers also need to use every social media platform
available and use paid media strategically to get proof of audience.
Not only does the target consumer have to see and view the ad, they have to have
a reason to want to send it to someone else. Advertisers need to post videos in a few key
places and let social networking do the rest. Van Noorta, Antheunisb, & Van
Reijmersdal, (2012) said that, “Messages are perceived as more relevant if received from
strong ties…the results imply that viral SNS campaign should be targeted at a limited
number of influential users and the campaign should be designed in such a way that
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receivers of a campaign will only forward the campaign to a few strong ties in their
SNSs” (p. 50).
As the message circulates from person to person, its distribution potential
increases exponentially within the social networks (Tuten 2008). “Videos are only
described as viral when they are able to be spread from user to user through the sending
of links or their embedding on other pages. Furthermore, the video sharing sites that
facilitate this type of transmission also frequently allow for commentary” (Gurney, 2009,
p. 10). Thurman and Lupton (2008) also found that the preferred format for online video
is 40 seconds, has light content, and is shareable.
How do these companies use viral videos to reach a target audience? When do
they receive most of their growth? Do these companies use the drivers Mills (2012)
mentioned to ensure a successful viral video campaign launch? Does viral marketing only
increase awareness or does it actually increase revenue? Is marketing most successful in
building brand awareness rather than specifically driving sales of a product? (p. 169).
Research Questions
For my thesis I want to investigate not only how viral advertising is done, but also
if it’s beneficial or not. I seek to find answers to four research questions.
• How do small companies use online viral marketing to promote their products?
• What are the benefits of viral advertising?
• Do viral video advertisements increase revenue or just brand awareness?
• How do companies get target consumers to watch and share their videos?
By interviewing representatives from Blendtec and Orabrush, two companies that are
known as pioneers of viral video marketing, I hope to test validity of claims in my
literature review such as why marketers are moving from traditional to online advertising,
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the benefits of viral advertising, suggestions on how to make a video go viral, and does
viral video increase revenue and heighten brand awareness.
Methodology
I plan to answer these questions by conducting case studies on these two
companies. Both have successful YouTube channels and they use videos to promote
products. By interviewing two experts in YouTube advertising and viral marketing, I
hope to learn how these viral video pioneers utilize YouTube and social media to create
brand awareness, promote products and reach their target audience. I plan to answer my
research questions by studying the interviews to learn how they had such successful
campaigns. The interviews will be recorded with an audio recording device. They will
then be transcribed so they’re easy to study and apply to literature review and research
questions. Transcriptions won’t be included in the report for privacy concerns.
Case Description: Blendtec’s Will it Blend? videos
I interviewed Nate Hirst, the marketing manager at Blendtec. He is in charge of
the digital marketing and advertising for the company. Blendtec is one of the first
revolutionary companies in viral video, and blenders. In 1987 the founder and CEO, Tom
Dickson, created the first “Blendtec” as a multi-functional kitchen machine for
commercial use. Soon the public caught on to the blender that could make anything from
soups to smoothies to sauces and he started selling it to regular consumers.
But what really caught the attention of the world was the web video series called
Will it Blend? In the series, Dickson blends all different things to show how good the
blenders are. He’s blended an iPhone, marbles, rake handles, lighters, golf balls, Nike
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shoes and a list of more than one hundred other items. The videos went viral and became
an international phenomenon.
As of February 8, 2013, Blendtec’s YouTube channel has 529,002 subscribers.
Hirst said there has never been a viral campaign that has lasted as long as Blendtec’s.
According to Blendtec’s website, it has been called “one of the most creative marketing
campaigns of our time. The videos showcase the strength and durability of the entry level
13AMP home blender and suggest that if it will blend marbles and rake handles, it will
certainly handle the everyday food items it was meant for.” (Blendtec.com) The series
has won a long list of awards for its viral marketing efforts (Blendtec’s Will it Blend?
Facebook page):
• 2008 CLIO Award, Bronze,
Interactive, Viral
• .net Award- Best Viral Video.
• International Academy of the
Visual Arts, Communicator Award-
Viral
• Salt Lake Magazine, Best Viral
Marketer, 2008
• Always On, Best of Broadband
Award 2007
• You Tube Awards, Fifth Place,
Best Series 2007
• Communicator Award, Gold,
Award of Excellence for Best Viral
Video
• 9th in Social Brands 100 Report
(2011)
• Communicator Award, Gold,
Award of Excellence for Best Viral
Marketing Video
• #1 Viral Ad of All Time - Ad Age
The infamous viral videos are actually a fluke. In 2006, George Wright, the marketing
director at the time, went into the demo room and saw wood chips everywhere. That’s
when he discovered that Dickson tested the durability of the blenders by blending wood
and other things. He had been testing them that way since he invented the product.
Wright had an idea to start an internal campaign for employees to see how good the
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blenders are. Hirst said “if your own employees don’t know how good your product is,
how are they going to tell the world about it?” He grabbed a camera and $50 worth of
things to blend and made a video about it. He put the video YouTube because it was a
free, easy way to host a video.
Employees loved the video and started sharing it with others. More people discovered
it, and one week later the video had gone viral with about 5 million views. “Now it seems
commonplace, but at the time nobody was doing crazy stuff like that and so I think just
the type of content that it was made it so that employees started sharing it with their
family members and it’s something that you wanted to share with everybody,” said Hirst.
Hirst said they were a very small brand before that so these videos put them on
the map. At the time, no one was getting more views than Blendtec so a lot of people
started talking about them online and offline. They got a lot of press from the videos as
well. They were on the Tonight Show, the Today Show, The History Channel and the
Discovery Channel. Even other larger companies wanted to use Blendtec’s established
brand for their marketing purposes. Large, well-established companies like Nike, Ford
and Doritos asked Blendtec to make a video for them.
Blendtec was one of the pioneers in viral video. YouTube itself was just starting
up a little bit earlier in 2006. No one had yet witnessed the power that online video had
for a company. Blendtec just used YouTube because it was free.
As of October 18, 2012, Blendtec’s YouTube channel has more than 440,000
subscribers and more than 202 million views. It’s YouTube video “Will it Blend? –ipad”
has more than 14 million views. “I think it has to do with, that it was a groundbreaking,
revolutionary product at the time. We got the one thing that everyone in the world wanted
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and destroyed it in front of their faces,” said Hirst. He gave two main reasons for the
success. First, because they created good content that people wanted to share, and second
they just happened to be one of the first companies to do something like that.
Benefits of a Viral Video Campaign
When it comes to advertising and marketing, digital is the only way to go for
Blendtec. The company has never done traditional television, radio, or outdoor
advertising. The main reason they chose digital is because it was easier to measure, easier
to reach the target audience, and cost effective. Using the correct tools is essential and
Blendtec has found the right tools in digital marketing.
Hirst compared a digital ad to a print ad. He said when you buy print ad space
from a magazine or newspaper, they will tell you how many people read their product
and the demographics of readers. But that’s about all you know. You have no idea how
many people actually saw the ad. Whereas with digital, Hirst said he knows exactly how
many people saw the online advertisement and what percent clicked on the link in the ad
to the website and the percentage of who bought a blender. He said it’s much easier to
track the return on investment.
But Blendtec spent a lot of work on the backend building a large fan base to start
out with. Blendtec has two Facebook pages, one for Will it Blend? and another for the
Blendtec blender, which is mainly recipes. Hirst said they have to hire more people
because digital advertising is more time consuming than creating a TV spot. With TV it’s
just about creating an ad then spending a lot of money to promote it. But Hirst said with
his small team they would spend far less than somebody that’s trying to do a TV or more
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traditional campaign. Social media and YouTube have made it easier to reach more
people.
Hirst also said, the real benefit of digital advertising over traditional means is the
reach you can achieve with it. He gave the example of the free pink blender they gave
away to one lucky Facebook follower in 2012. Hirst said the fans went crazy for it and
the contest received a lot of awareness. He said “to just give away a pink blender and
reach a million people is amazing. I don’t know how many people we could reach with a
TV ad. But I’m guessing it costs more than just making a pink blender.”
How Blendtec Made A Video Viral
YouTube is still a great, easy tool for companies, regardless of the proliferation of
content. Hirst said “YouTube is by far the most popular video platform and they make it
really easy to share and the way they allow people to subscribe to your channel is really
nice. Because every time we post a video every one of our subscribers gets emailed about
it.”
For its YouTube videos, Blendtec uses tools available on YouTube like
annotations where you can insert links and comments right in your videos. Blendtec can
also put links into the description before the video is even made public. Once it goes
public, YouTube automatically spreads it to all of Blendtec’s subscribers. With digital,
once you have that network built up, Hirst said you can drive a large network of people
wherever you want them to go online.
A big secret Hirst gave is to treat YouTube as more of a search engine than a
video platform. He said that Google, Yahoo and Bing are the top three search engines.
They track clips from links on their videos and on their YouTube channel page to their
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website and they “get a significant source of traffic” from those. Google also allows you
to do some targeting based on interests. Blendtec targets based on health and fitness and
if they’ve come to their website or not.
Orabrush also said they view YouTube as a social media platform and online
community; it has the same interactions as content on Facebook. You can comment on
videos and “like” or “dislike” them. You can favorite videos and add them to playlists.
All of this will show up in the feeds of people you’re connected to and they’ll see what
videos you liked, what videos you commented on.
Reaching Target Demographics
There’s a reason Blendtec has two video campaigns, one for recipes and one for
Will it Blend? videos. Hirst said a click from a recipe video is worth about 5 times more
than a Will it Blend? “The reason is because the recipe videos are aimed more at our
target audience than the Will it Blend? videos, even though they continually get
significantly more viewers.” The main problem is that the demographics of YouTube
viewers aren’t the same as Blendtec’s target audience. Most of the viewers of YouTube
videos are younger males.
The content from the recipes meets the needs of the core demographic directly,
which is adult females. Hirst’s advice to other companies is to “figure out what appeals
to your demographic and create content around them and your likelihood of success will
be far greater than if you were trying to create a viral video campaign.”
Getting Demographic to Share Content
Hirst attributes a lot of Blendtec’s success to creating content that appeals to their
targeted demographic. “The secret is good content is something somebody would want to
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share on their own. You shouldn’t have to persuade or reward someone for sharing your
content. If it’s good enough it will just automatically get shared. Our goal is to just figure
out what people like to share on Facebook or Pinterest and do our version of it and make
it better.”
Dickson on the Will it Blend? videos never says “check out our video on
Blendtec.com.” At the end, it just reads on the screen “visit us at Blendtec.com.” Hirst
said, “it’s not about pushing the product. It’s more about making something that people
want to consume.” Blendtec creates recipe videos because many people love recipes. He
said, “It’s an easy way for us to show the power of the blender and what it can do without
being really in your face.”
Another secret to getting people to share videos is to create content that’s tied to a
current event or new product. Hirst explained that they could easily get one or two
million views by blending the hottest newest Samsung device. They go many views by
blending the iPhone 5 and the Samsung 3sg at the same time.
Revenue versus Branding
Blendtec has two goals with its campaigns: create revenue and enhance branding.
The entire goal of the Will it Blend? series is to strengthen their branding. Hirst explained
they get lots of views and site visitors from this series. While the videos generate some
revenue, the goal is to create content that gets shared; content people want to talk about
so the brand gets more exposure.
When asked if these videos create revenue, Hirst had a hard time answering. He
said “We look really closely at the locations we’re in and how quickly our blenders are
selling there. We believe it’s working but it’s hard to statistically prove it.”
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There is a correlation between video and consumer purchase decisions. Hirst
said, “if somebody watches a video on your product, they’re 64% more likely to purchase
it. If you think about it that way we do quite a few paid views of our commercials that are
highly targeted, then we put these videos on specific places on our website to increase the
likelihood of somebody watching a video about us.” Retail stores are the biggest sellers
of Blendtec blenders. When they release a successful Will it Blend video, Hirst said they
don’t necessarily see a huge jump in sales, but they do see a higher request for blenders in
international markets. Hirst hopes that when people go to the stores they will think of the
videos they saw online and purchase the product. The videos are also an easy way to
prove popularity to retailers.
Case Description: Bad Breath Test by Orabrush
Orabrush is perhaps one of the greatest success stories illustrating the power of
viral video in launching a new company. Its video “Bad Breath Test – How to Tell When
Your Breath Stinks,” has more than 17 million views. It’s one of the sponsored channels
with the most subscribers on YouTube. The first video has 13 million hits and the entire
series has 30 million views of the series. Since Orabrush launched exclusively on
YouTube and Facebook, its sales soared from zero to $1 million in less than a year (Boal,
2010).
I interviewed Austin Craig, the spokesperson for Orabrush. Online YouTube
videos are what saved the company. Dr. Bob Wagstaff invented a special tongue scraper
called the Orabrush. He spent eight years trying to market it. He spent his own money on
advertising, but he didn’t know the best method. He spent $40,000 on an infomercial, but
that only sold about 100 units.
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Craig said Wagstaff knew he had a good product; he just didn’t know how to sell
it. As a last resort, Wagstaff presented his product to a market research class at the
Brigham Young University School of Business Management. He asked them to do some
market research on the product to see if it would sell online. A group of students
presented their findings to the class and concluded that 92% of people surveyed that
would want to try Orabrush, would not buy it on the Internet. Therefore, they concluded
that it was not worth marketing online.
Craig’s friend, Jeff Harmon, was in that class and saw the presentation. He
raised his hand and said “that means 8% of people on the Internet might be interested in
buying this product online. 8% of the Internet is millions of people. You’re not interested
in pursuing that market?” He then got with Wagstaff to try and promote the Orabrush.
Harmon spent nights and weekends figuring out how to market the product online
when Wagstaff had no money left for marketing. They realized they’d exhausted all the
conventional avenues. Wagstaff had either already tried them or didn’t have enough
money to try them. All that was left was social media.
It was the summer of 2009 when Harmon got the idea to make a YouTube video
about Orabrush. YouTube was just barely opening up its platform to marketers. Up until
this point YouTube had just been for uploading home videos, it had no advertising
purposes. “Jeff was one of the first people to jump in and figure out how to use that
system to sell products. Harmon got really good at it, really fast, in an advertising
ecosystem that didn’t have much competition,” said Craig.
Harmon got Craig and a couple other friends together to create a trial video. The
video starts out with Craig explaining what halitophobia (fear of chronic bad breath) is,
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how to tell if you have it, and a solution to the problem (the Orabrush). It’s all done in a
clever, witty way. Craig said he was just doing a favor for a friend and didn’t think
anything of the video or if it would even be used. Now, 3 ½ years later, Orabrush’s
YouTube channel has more than 54 million views (As of February 16, 2013) and has sold
millions of dollars worth of product from that video.
Benefits of a Viral Video Campaign
Just like Hirst at Blendtec, Craig said a major benefit of using the web to promote
your product is because it’s easy to measure. He said you can learn things like, “where
are people coming from, what do they think, where are they getting confused, what do
they not understand? What are their hang-ups and holdups? Why are they not buying the
product?”
A strong social media presence makes it’s a lot easier to talk to your customers. If
Orabrush has a question, it can just put a post on its Facebook page asking its 345,000 or
more fans. Craig said, “A decade ago you would’ve had to go to the Madison Avenue
research firm, pay them tens of thousands of dollars to get together a focus group. Now I
can just put a Facebook post and ask people, and within minutes have a critical mass of
relevant data of whatever I’m trying to find out about.”
Not only is viral advertising easy to measure, it is a lot easier to engage people as
compared to traditional advertising. “By having it be social, you facilitated a conversation
around your brand, if I watch this and I think it’s funny, I can comment right now on the
video if I think it’s really funny I can share with my friends with just a few clicks.”
He said before social media, word of mouth about television advertisements was a
lot slower. “Before if I thought something was funny or relevant or interesting, best case
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scenario is I’m going to be talking about it tomorrow to the 2 guys next to me around the
water cooler at work. Now you can share it with your 500 friends on Facebook
immediately. And if it’s that good they’ll do the exact same thing. So it makes the
playing field level.”
Social media is competitive, but if you have good content and you know your
tools it will go much further than it ever could have with traditional broadcast media. For
example Old Spice was originally a television Super Bowl advertisement. Even though it
was shown on the most-watched television program of the year, it had far better success
online.
Another advantage of viral advertising is it’s cheaper than traditional television
advertising. “To get a TV ad it’s very simple, you just have to have a ton of money and
that’s it. Pay the broadcasters enough money and you can put almost any garbage on TV
for 30 seconds,” said Craig. Orabrush didn’t have money so he says the inexpensive
YouTube platform made the company possible. He said they had to launch it the way
they did, because they didn’t have a budget. “There are several things we do at Orabrush
that are models that we figured out, and it’s not how any other company does business,
but we had to figure this out because there wouldn’t be an Orabrush without those.”
How Orabrush Made a Viral Video
Unlike the most commonly shared videos on YouTube at the time, this video had
an agenda to sell a product. But Craig said they still wanted their video to “seem as real
and as organic as a lot of the content we’d already seen on YouTube.” Harmon did a lot
of analysis on YouTube of the similarities between the most popular videos. He noticed
there were a lot of videos of just a person talking to a camera, a lot of jump cuts and a lot
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of fast-talking. The videos were also humorous. Craig said when they wrote the script,
they tried to incorporate all those elements. Looking back, Craig said the video is very
amateurish; the colors are blown out and the sound is bad. “I think that has an air of
authenticity about it that’s disarming. When they start watching that video, the bad breath
test, they don’t think they’re watching an ad,” said Craig.
The video doesn’t even mention the product until one minute and 17 seconds into
the two-minute video. Craig said “by the time the product is introduced, people are
already having fun with the video, they like the character, they’re laughing, and they’re
interested before the product is even introduced to them as an idea. So I think all of those
helped it have a viral element.”
Craig said when it comes to YouTube and other SNSs, they have to constantly be
changing the way they do things. “A company that’s growing, has to change, has to
evolve. And a company that is changing and evolving will likely be growing as well.
We’ve just continually tried new things. We’re always trying to figure out what’s a new
trick because as soon as the system changes, as soon as the platform changes, as soon as
there’s a new element involved there are new tricks to try,” said Craig.
Craig said Orabursh has what’s called the 4 C’s of YouTube to help them guide
the YouTube process: content, collaboration, consistency and calls to action. Craig said
Orabrush tries to engage with other users of social media, “You want to find the thought
leaders, you want to find the celebrities. Engage with them in a way that their fans and
their followers will see. You can exchange social clout.”
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It’s very important to put out new content consistently. Craig explained, “if
people learn that they can’t rely on you to consistently deliver, they will stop tuning in.
They will stop looking for it. They will actually forget you exist.”
Calls to action just means that you ask users to do something. If you want
subscribers, tell people to subscribe. You want them to share your video, ask them to
share it. “People respond when you give them clear instructions. By asking people to do
what you want them to do they are more likely to do it,” said Craig.
You also have to work hard to promote your video. From the beginning, every
dollar of profit from the video, they put it right back into getting more people to see the
videos. Craig said, “because we knew the more we did that, the more we invested in our
video, the broader our audience would get or sales would get. It was this virtuous sales
cycle. We did that for months and continue to do until this day.”
Reaching Target Demographics
Orabrush took advantage of YouTube’s powerful advertising system and also its
search box. YouTube can help target certain people using as much information as they
have. That way, you can target your video to be seen by a specific audience. “When we
first started with Orabrush, we hadn’t really started narrowing our target. We just targeted
anyone that had a mouth. In fact because it was a new system at the time, and there
wasn’t competition for it, the bid for certain search terms were very low.”
But using social media effectively is more about building a strong subscriber base
than creating a single viral video. “By building your subscriber base you essentially have
people who have volunteered to receive your content.” After getting success from the
first video, for a year and a half Orabrush continued to put out a funny, entertaining video
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at least once a week. That helped them build up subscribers and raise awareness, rather
than solely sell products. Craig said, “by focusing on building up our subscriber base, that
is how we can ensure that our videos will consistently get seen. We try to make it
something that people want to share.”
Orabrush not only looks at how many views the videos get, but how many shares
across different social platforms, the like to dislike ratio, and how many comments it has.
Now, from specific videos, they can even measure how many products were sold as a
result of watching that video. Craig said, “we carefully measure our sales funnel,
meaning where people come to our site from, and whether they make it all the way
through the checkout process buying a product. How much do they buy?”
Orabrush said its videos were good not only to increase straight online revenue,
but they helped the company get into more retailers because they had proof of the
popularity online on YouTube and Facebook. It helped them get into more stores.
Previously Orabush had tried getting into retailer outlets, but with little success. Craig
said after the launch of the videos they had retailers calling and saying, “listen, I don’t
know who you guys are, but I’ve got people coming into my store, asking for your
product, can I carry it?” This kind of backdoor success worked for the company.
Getting Demographic to Share Content
The best way to get people to share videos through social media is to have great
content. Another thing that Craig said always helps and is easy to do, is just ask people to
share the video with their friends, “A direct call to action like that may seem like it’s too
on the nose, it’s not. It always increases your conversions,” said Craig. It’s not just about
getting lots of views, it also increasing shares and subscribers.
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Revenue versus Branding
Orabrush’s first few viral videos were intended to sell a product. Those videos
are what saved the company because a lot of people started buying the product when they
saw the video. But now they’re in retail stores all over the country so it’s about
increasing the market size and branding the product. Craig said they create both revenue
driven and branding videos pretty consistently.
Orabrush classifies what each is going to be before it’s even produced. Craig said
they have videos specifically for brand awareness that are meant to engage the audience
and help people have positive feelings towards Orabrush. Other videos are very
specifically about the product. Craig said, “If you watch our videos it’s not hard to tell
which ones are which.”
Analysis
Do viral video advertisements increase revenue or just brand awareness?
Both Blendtec and Orabrush have videos meant to increase revenue and brand
awareness. But they aren’t intended to do both at the same time. Because both
companies focus heavily on retail, videos are intended more to create awareness so when
consumers go into the retail stores they’ll recognize the product. The purpose of the
videos is also to increase subscribers to their YouTube channel.
How do companies get target consumers to watch and share their videos?
The main thing both companies did was to have great content. When they each
launched their videos, there wasn’t a lot of competition on YouTube. Today 72 hours of
video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, so it’s easy to get buried and unnoticed. A
better option to get users to watch your video is to build up your subscriber base. After
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that, you automatically have a large audience who will see your videos when logging
onto YouTube.
Then the next thing to do to get people to share your videos is to make them
easily shareable across multiple platforms. Blendtec suggested that companies make the
videos timely, tie videos to current events and use popular search terms that people are
already searching for. Orabrush said companies can get people to share their videos just
by asking viewers to do so.
What are the benefits of viral advertising?
The biggest benefit to using viral advertising and social media is that it’s easy to
measure. There are a lot of tools available to determine not just how many views, but
where they’re viewing it from, if they go to your website, etc. With traditional forms of
advertising like television and print, it is hard to measure exactly how many people
actually see your ad. Viral advertising makes it easier to reach your targeted audience.
Not only that, but it makes it makes it easier to engage them in an ongoing conversation.
Viral advertising is also a lot cheaper than traditional methods. Although it takes more
work, it is an easily accessible option for companies that don’t have a lot of capital.
Social media takes a lot of time because you have to constantly work on it. So
there are costs associated with hiring more people to run your social media campaigns.
But that costs a lot less than creating a professional commercial and then buying
television ad space.
How do small companies use online viral marketing to promote their products?
When the two companies first started, no one else was doing what they were doing
online. Neither of them expected to get as large a reach with the videos as they did. But
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they both said that what they did when they launched their first viral campaign would not
work now. Blendtec and Orabrush were viral video pioneers. When they first launched
their videos, they had little competition. It takes a lot more effort today to get videos
noticed.
First off, no one should set out to make a viral video. It’s better to create content that
will reach a targeted demographic, rather than a video that will appeal to everyone
including millions of YouTube viewers. Social media platforms like YouTube are a great
way to share content about your product with others. As discussed above, there are a lot
of great benefits. But it should not be a company’s main focus in advertising. YouTube
videos are best used in conjunction with other, more reliable and sustainable methods to
get a consistent return.
Downsides of Viral Video
There are clear disadvantages to a purely digital campaign. A big problem,
according to Hirst, is that not everyone in Blendtec’s demographic is online. He said a
large TV campaign definitely reaches more people, and it’s easier than doing a digital
campaign. “When it comes to social you have to work really hard to create things that are
shared and spread. With a TV commercial you just pay money and people see it. There’s
a little more finesse involved when it comes to something social,” said Hirst.
Also, one of the biggest lessons Hirst learned was “to not put your faith in a platform
you don’t own.” Blendtec doesn’t have control over what Facebook and YouTube do.
Hirst said that when Facebook changed their algorithm, so that when they posted a video
they went from reaching 30,000 to only 5,000. Hirst said that they put too much faith in
Facebook and YouTube instead of building their own base in a place they control and
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manage, like a blog or website. Hirst said if you create content that your target
demographic wants, rather than just trying to attain a million views, you have a far better
chance of succeeding than with just a viral video.
The main goal should be to use these tools to get people back to your website, which
you can control. He said, “these should be looked at as tools, not the be all end all.”
Instead he suggested engaging people on Facebook and YouTube keeping and then drive
them back to your site.
Another negative thing about social media is that it’s constantly changing. This
worked for Orabrush because they jumped into social media at a time YouTube was
evolving, and figured out quickly how to make the changes work for them. Hirst said
they have to change the way they do things every six months, “YouTube, Facebook and
nearly any web platform is constantly evolving. Your platform is evolving, adapt with it
or you will be irrelevant very soon. That’s just a cold hard reality that people are going to
have to accept if people want to be anything in social media.”
Getting a viral video is not always possible, no matter how good you are. Craig
said, “I know some of the people who are the best in the world, and they can’t do that
consistently, they can not just have videos go viral every time.” There’s a lot of luck
involved with viral and there’s no guarantee your video will spread.
Another downside of viral video that Craig warned about is the fact that
companies don’t have total control over social media. And as Blendtec warned, don’t put
your faith in a platform you don’t control. Craig said that no matter how good your video
is, there will always be negative comments about it. You do have the option to sensor
comments. You have to let people be open, and you in turn have to be transparent with
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your followers. If you’re not open with your content, people won’t trust you. Craig
suggests that it’s important to engage with the negative comments and manage them.
With television ads people can make negative comments, but word of mouth can
only go so far and it’s not permanently written on the Internet. It takes longer for things
to spread around through word of mouth and it’s not as permanent. Eventually people
would stop talking about the problem. But with social media, everything is written
permanently and it’s often an ongoing conversation.
Don’t Plan a Viral Video
When asked what advice Craig had for other companies trying to do viral he said,
“Don’t set out to make a viral video. It’s like setting out to win the lottery, “You don’t
plan on paying your bills by buying lottery tickets. You need to do something sustainable.
A lottery ticket is not a strategy. A viral video is not a strategy. It’s a shot in the dark.
Sustainable campaigns are how you build a brand. Sustainable campaigns are how you
build a business.” Even though it worked for Orabrush, it’s not the best ongoing business
strategy because it’s not a consistent source of revenue. Craig admitted that even the best
viral video creators can’t always get every one of their videos to go viral.
“If you’re trying to build your brand online, he suggests using a lot of the same
content strategies you would use in traditional broadcast media. He also suggests that you
adapt your content strategy for the medium. You want brand advocates, you want people
to like your brand, and you want people to talk about your brand. The best way to do that
is by creating an ongoing conversation and continuing to put out content.
He said a viral video should never be a goal of a company. Even if it goes viral,
the company may not be able to handle that Web traffic. A single viral video isn’t enough
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to keep a business going. The marketing directors at both Blendtec and Orabrush realize
that a viral video is not a sustainable, long-term and consistent way to grow a business
and increase revenue.
Limits and Further Research Opportunities
Only two companies were interviewed for this research. These companies are
similar in their viral video success stories. They shared a lot of the same methods and
philosophies. There are other companies who could’ve been interviewed and compared
to Orabrush and Blendtec to see if they had any differing conclusions about viral video. I
strictly interviewed companies about viral advertising. But other independent content
creators could’ve been interviewed about their experience with viral video.
Both of these companies are also from Utah. There’s actually quite a strong
presence in Utah for viral video. Some of the top YouTube video creators like Lindsey
Stirling, The Piano Guys, Kid History videos, and Devin Graham are all from Utah. The
guy behind the highly revered Old Spice ads, Jason Bagley, is from Utah. The ad won
the Grand Prix at the Cannes Advertising Festival, which Bagley says is "the highest
award they give." So clearly there is a lot more to be studied about YouTube in Utah.
Conclusion
Blendtec became the infamous campaign because it was launched at the right
place and the right time. Blendtec was on the viral video scene at the right time, because
in 2006, there was little competition on YouTube. This same campaign might not have
worked as easily and been as inexpensive today.
Hirst said, today anyone can get a viral video, for the right price. He said, “your
odds of becoming viral are pretty slim. If you look at the best viral campaigns, all of them
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that I know of have been mostly paid. The concept of viral being free and easy is not true.
It’s really difficult to get something to go viral and usually you’ve got to pay a lot of
money to get it to do it for you” said Hirst.
Even though Blendtec had phenomenal success, Hirst suggested taking a more
traditional approach to advertising. “I feel bad when I tell people this because people are
so excited about viral and they want to do it so badly. I try to not be a downer, but there
are proven methods that can almost guarantee you success, and viral is not one of them.”
Hirst suggested investing your time, effort and money into something more
proven to work, like email marketing. He said it has been around a long time so no one
talks about it anymore, but it actually makes more money for Blendtec than social media
does. Blendtec has a strong email campaign where it emails out a new recipe every week
to use with the Blender. Hirst said, “It’s just that people are excited about social so you
hear about it all the time, but investing in things that are a little bit older but are proven,
and can almost guarantee the results out of is my advice to people.”
Facebook and YouTube will always have a place in digital marketing, but using
those tools is not as easy as it might sound. He said the success stories are an anomaly.
Social does have value because in a day he can drive a thousand people to wherever we
want them to go. “That’s a lot of power to hold. That’s the true value of social to me is
that once you’ve spent the time to build that network, then you have the ability to take
that network where you want them.”
Online video is an easy, cost-efficient way to market products. Social media
platforms provide a quick way to interact with customers. It’s also easily measured. It
should be an important part of any companies advertising efforts. But no company
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should intend to make a viral video. It’s not a sustainable business method. Instead,
companies should focus on creating easily shared content that appeals to targeted
demographics. Instead, use video to drive people to where you want them and to increase
brand awareness.
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Appendix A
Interview Questions
1) What were you advertising goals?
2) What factors led you try video marketing?
3) What was the inspiration for your video?
4) What other forms of advertising were you vested in?
5) Were they successful?
6) Did viral video advertising save your company money in advertising costs?
7) How did your other methods tie into your social media and video campaigns?
8) What did you expect to gain from your video?
9) Where did the inspiration from your video come from?
10) How is video advertising different from other forms?
11) What are some of the benefits of viral advertising for you?
12) How has YouTube helped you with the viral video process?
13) How was social media impacted your viral video process?
14) Did you expect your video to go viral?
15) How did you make your video easily shareable?
16) What did you do to get your video viewed?
17) What platforms did you use to share your video?
18) What did you do to encourage viewers to share your video with others?
19) What did you do to reach your target audience?
20) How did a viral video help you reach your intended audience?
21) Did you see an initial spike in views?
22) What would you have done different?
23) You already have a strong viral video web presence, what are you doing to keep
up the momentum?
24) How do you use online viral marketing to promote their products?
25) Do viral video advertisements increase revenue or just brand awareness?
26) How do you measure success of videos?
27) How do companies get viewers to share their ads?
28) Do what degree to you make your ads stealth, meaning how do you get people to
watch them without appearing to seem pushy, but still relay information about
your product?
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Appendix B
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The author has granted Weber State University Archives a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce his or her theses, in whole or in part, in electronic or paper form and to make it available to the general public at no charge. The author retains all other rights.

Full-Text

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The Validity of Viral Video: Does it Really Help a Business?
Brooke A. Harris
Weber State University
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Abstract
New technology has made it easier for companies to market their products online.
YouTube and other social media sites are great tools for advertisers. This study
researches viral video advertising. The subjects of the study are two successful
companies, Orabrush and Blendtec. They have both seen great success through the use of
viral video. But they started at a time when there wasn’t much competition on YouTube
for businesses. They say there are many benefits to using viral video: it costs less, it’s
easier to measure, and it’s easier to engage consumers in a conversation than traditional
advertising methods. They also give a lot of advice on how to get people to view your
videos, as well as how to get viewers to share it through social media. But the tools and
methods they used when they first launched their videos may not work as well today.
Getting a video to go viral, especially a video advertisement is compared to
winning the lottery. Getting a video to go viral isn’t as easy, or even as valuable, as some
businesses think. It is less expensive and easier to measure. But it still takes a lot of work
and there’s a lot of luck involved. Even if a video goes viral it’s not a sustainable form of
advertising. Orabrush and Blendtec agree that the best way to use video advertising is to
build a strong subscriber base and create content specifically for your target audience.
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Table
of
Contents
Literature
Review
....................................................................................................................
4
Beginning
of
Viral
Advertising
........................................................................................................................
4
Need
for
Change
...................................................................................................................................................
4
Internet
Advertising
...........................................................................................................................................
5
Television
Advertising
.......................................................................................................................................
6
Benefits
of
Viral
Advertising
...........................................................................................................................
7
Does
Viral
Advertising
Increase
Revenue
..................................................................................................
8
Consumer
Involvement
.....................................................................................................................................
8
eWOM
.......................................................................................................................................................................
9
Viral
Defined
.......................................................................................................................................................
10
YouTube:
making
viral
easy
..........................................................................................................................
10
Supporting
Other
Marketing
Efforts
.........................................................................................................
11
How
to
Make
Video
Viral
...............................................................................................................................
12
Viral
Video
ROI
..................................................................................................................................................
13
Success
Stories
...................................................................................................................................................
15
Old
Spice
...............................................................................................................................................................
15
Problems
with
Viral
Advertising
.................................................................................................................
18
Stealth
Marketing
.............................................................................................................................................
18
Getting
Your
Video
to
Go
Viral
.....................................................................................................................
20
Research
Questions
..............................................................................................................
21
Methodology
............................................................................................................................
22
Case
Description:
Blendtec’s
Will
it
Blend?
video
series
..........................................
22
Benefits
of
a
Viral
Video
Campaign
............................................................................................................
25
How
Blendtec
Made
a
Video
Viral
..............................................................................................................
26
Reaching
Target
Demographics
..................................................................................................................
27
Getting
Demographics
to
Share
Content
.................................................................................................
27
Revenue
Versus
Branding
..............................................................................................................................
28
Case
Description:
Bad
Breath
Test
by
Orabrush
........................................................
29
Benefits
of
a
Viral
Video
Campaign
............................................................................................................
31
How
Orabrush
Made
its
Video
Viral
..........................................................................................................
32
Reaching
Target
Demographics
..................................................................................................................
34
Getting
Demographics
to
Share
Content
.................................................................................................
35
Revenue
Versus
Branding
..............................................................................................................................
36
Analysis
....................................................................................................................................
36
Limits
and
Further
Research
Opportunities
................................................................
41
Conclusion
...............................................................................................................................
41
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A lot of companies are turning to the legendary powers of “viral video” to
advertise their products. Two companies, Blendtec and Orabrush, have mastered online
digital video campaigns. This thesis explains how these two companies succeeded in
creating viral videos. They offer advice on how companies can effectively use video
advertising to promote their products.
Literature Review
Beginning of Viral Advertising
Commonly, advertisers have always heavily relied on the power of word of mouth
(WOM) to promote their products. People are more likely to trust recommendations from
a friend talking about a product than a spokesperson or actor from the company (Toros &
Kalpaklioglu, 2011, p. 4126).
With emerging technologies, marketers found that online is a great place to spark
conversations about their products, which led to electronic word of mouth (eWOM), a
phenomenon that has exploded over the last decade. Internet-based advertising is
continually growing while the traditional advertising media, such as TV, radio,
magazines, and newspapers, are losing ground to the Web. “Technology and other factors
have significantly evolved and positively effect the way consumers use communications,
favoring rapid and efficient information exchange and interactivity” (Petrecu,et al., 2011,
p. 209). The aim of viral advertising is to make the target audience read, watch, and see
the messages and to position the brand in their minds.
Need for Change
The media landscape is changing; advertising has to change as well. New
technologies, expensive TV advertising, and changing demographics have made it
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necessary for companies to change their advertising strategy from WOM to viral
advertising. Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) make it easy for viewers to skip regular
television commercials. Netflix, Hulu, Roku, Apple TV and other video streaming
devices and services mean people don’t even have to watch their favorite television
shows on regular network television.
In 2006, the Association of National Advertisers conducted a survey and found
that because of DVRs, 60% of advertisers planned to decrease their television advertising
budgets. A survey found that 70% of people believe that DVRs and video on demand
would reduce or destroy the effectiveness of the regular 30-second TV spot. (Greene
2007). Jupiter Media said, “In response, advertisers and television programmers must
devise new strategies for combating the potentially disastrous effects of ad skipping”
(Bronneneberg, Dubé, & Mela, 2010, 998).
Internet Advertising
Technological advancements make the Internet more and more appealing to
advertisers. Smartphones give people access to the Internet wherever they are. That
means people will spend more and more time online. Americans spend an average of
about six hours a day watching video; four of those hours are on TV. The remaining two
hours are spent on video games, Web video, DVDs and video on mobile devices.
Researches project this will grow to eight hours a day by 2013. The growth will come
from online video (Stelter, June 25 2008). In 2007 Americans watched 7.5 billion streams
and 16.4 billion minutes in total of online video. Children spend almost one-third of their
online time watching videos (Michael, Cornell & Nizan, 2010).
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The online video platform gives advertisers a lot more tools to work with. Online
videos also seem to be more authentic than regular TV. Tolson (2010) wrote that regular
TV broadcasts would never seem like ordinary conversation because it’s heavily
institutionalized. It doesn’t occur naturally because it’s governed by protocols and
regulations. The audience is also overhearing the message, rather than being actively
engaged as if they were watching it online.
If any company has a web-based presence, then the web is the place to do advertising
because that’s where their customers are. “The most influential consumers on the web
today are 24 to 44 year olds who embrace the Internet, not just as a tool, but as a way of
life” (Reigner, 2007, 447).
Television Advertising
Consumers are also paying less attention to television advertisements. Consumers are
exposed to far more information than they can process. On average, adults are exposed to
about 3,500 pieces of advertising information every single day (Stelter, July 25 2008).
That makes it almost necessary for people to become good at ignoring advertisements.
It’s also getting harder to reach the target audience through traditional advertising.
This makes online video advertising even more essential. In 1960, Proctor & Gamble
reached 80% of women in the United States with just one 30-second Tide commercial on
the NBC, ABC and CBS networks. To get that same exposure today, P&G would have
to run the same ad on 100 different channels (Keller, 2009). A 2009 study revealed that
the number of television advertisements needed to reach 80% of females between ages 18
and 49 increased from three commercials in 1995 to 97 commercials in 2000 (Boyle,
2003).
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Benefits of Viral Advertising
Customers have access to massive amounts of information about brands, products
and companies. Advertisers need ways to reach large amounts of people, without
spending excessive amounts of money. Online videos are one of the cheapest routes to
go. That’s especially useful for smaller companies who can’t afford expensive
commercials. “Online video is acting as an equalizer by giving small consumer and B-to-
B brands the power of video once conferred on only big-budget TV advertisers” (Neff,
2007, p. 1).
Keller (2009) lists some of the benefits of viral advertising as:
• Improved perceptions of product performance
• Greater customer loyalty
• Less vulnerability to competitive marketing actions and marketing crises
• Larger margins
• More elastic customer response to price decreases and inelastic customer response
to price increases
• Greater trade or intermediary cooperation and support
• Increased marketing communication effectiveness
• Additional licensing and brand extension opportunities (p. 140)
Yang, Yao, Ma & Chen (2010) provided some more benefits:
• Information can be stored easily and exists for long periods of time online
• People can even ingest word-of-mouth marketing in their spare time
• There’s a strong sense of anonymity that makes it easier to communicate online
than face-to-face
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• Ads can spread faster and to a wider audience at a significantly lower cost
compared to traditional methods
Does Viral Advertising Increase Revenue?
“For decades, marketers have trumpeted the importance of WOM in influencing purchase
choice, but have still spent billions on brand advertising—without any proof of the link
between the two” (Graham, 2007, p. 427). Graham and Havlena conducted a study that
found online advertising plays an important role on consumer’s purchase decisions. They
found that advertising does stimulate increased visitation to the websites of advertised
brands—an indicator of consumer interest and involvement with a brand (p. 431).
Consumer Involvement
Viral marketing seeks to create a message that consumers will spread, rather than
the marketers spreading the message themselves. “It’s based on making consumers a part
of the campaign and aims to turn them into brand/organization/company agents” (Toros
& Kalpaklioglu, 2011, p. 4127). By using the “share” button to share pieces of media
with their friends, consumers become volunteer marketers (Jones, 2007).
Users have an influential role in online viral advertising. Customers become part
of the creative process. By spreading messages, they become “active participants”
instead of “passive recipients”. “The customer is always at the heart of the social
marketing process” (Thackeray, Neiger, Hanson & McKenzie, 2008, p. 340).
Messages will be shared about products whether from the company or not. It’s up
to advertisers to get positive messages out. “Everyday consumers are wielding greater
control over their media habits and their role in the commercial marketplace. Moreover,
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with the growth of online participation, consumers exert greater influence over the
products and brands considered for purchase” (Reigner, 2007, 436).
Viral marketing works because it puts the consumer in control. If consumers do not
like the ad, it not only affects the attitude toward the ad or brand, but also their intention
to transmit the message. The consumer needs to like the ad enough not only for him or
her to buy the product, but also to pass the message forward (Petrescu and Korgaonkar,
2011, p. 220).
Consumers can choose to spread the message or not. They have the capability to
write their own reviews about products. Brand managers have to define what their brand
is about, because if they don't, millions of consumers in digital social media will possibly
in ways the brand managers don't like (Neff, 2008, p. 4).
eWOM
Similarly, Keller (2007) conducted quantifiable research on the importance of
eWOM and consumer involvement. He said eWOM works because the consumer has the
power. He found that “media and marketing communications have a significant role to
play in influencing conversations, with significant differences evident from category to
category, and even from brand to brand” (p. 5).
Companies have successfully utilized eWOM and online advertising to promote
their products and services. eWOM is helpful because it makes it more likely that your
product will appear in search inquiries, message boards, blogs, SNSs, as well as
increasing visits to websites and creating brand awareness. It has transformed into a type
of viral marketing (Datta et al., 2005).
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Viral Defined
Golan and Zaidner (2008) defined viral advertising as content designed to
influence an audience to pass along the content to others (p. 963). The idea behind viral
marketing is to send out a piece of content to a few early adopters, and through the power
of the internet they’ll send it to their friends, who send it to their friends, and so on until it
exponentially grows. Jurvetson (2000) said, “The ideal viral product is used to
communicate with many people, converts a high percentage of them to new users, and
retains a high percentage of those new users. It also is used quite frequently” (p. 111).
Viral describes a message that is spread quickly and beyond the control of the
creators. “The analogy of a virus is used to describe the exponential diffusion of
information in an electronic environment”(Alexander, 2006, p. 12). Shukla (2010)
explained that viral marketing is the defining trend, despite the fact that it’s
uncontrollable. “As compared to conventional media, it requires less cash and can build a
customer-base with little or no capital outlay” (Shukla, 2010, p. 27).
YouTube: making viral easy
YouTube has made it even easier for advertisers to take their messages viral.
Millions of people use it everyday for entertainment and informative videos. Companies
quickly realized that it wasn’t just for consumers, but had a great use for marketers.
YouTube’s low costs, ease in sharing across platforms and SNSs, popularity, and high
entertainment value, make it a great resource. Advertisers grasped onto the idea of using
it as a video platform to showcase products and a new source for advertising revenue.
Three former PayPal employees created YouTube: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and
Jawed Karim. They activated the YouTube.com domain in February 2005, and uploaded
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the first video onto the site on April 23, 2005. Within a matter of months, YouTube had
become one of the fastest-growing websites in the world. By the summer of 2006 (just
six months after launch of the site) 60-100 million clips were being viewed daily on
YouTube and 65,000 video being uploaded onto the site every 24 hours. (Kim, 2012)
Because it’s free and accessible to anyone it has become very popular. For
businesses, it is very simple and has low management costs. YouTube’s cost to benefit
ratio is the main reason the advertising industry has taken hold of it (Yu & Sung, 2010).
Not only that, but the videos can easily be shared among different platforms like blogs,
SNS, email and online articles. It’s so much easier to view and share unfiltered content
compared to traditional media. Even though a lot of content posted on YouTube does
come from other media, like TV, users enjoy it more when they watch it on YouTube
(Pry, 2009).
According to Fulgoni (2007), people who use YouTube are more receptive to
advertising messages than non-users. They also believe that advertising for a product on
YouTube is just as trustworthy as other traditional advertising media. He even reported
that consumers trust the advertising from user-generated content (UCG) websites like
YouTube more than radio and outdoor advertising (p. 7).
Supporting Other Marketing Efforts
YouTube is used best when in conjunction with other mediums. Keller (2009)
suggests that marketers evaluate all the different communication possibilities. All the
mediums should work together towards the same goal of the company, whether to build
awareness or drive sales.
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On-line ads and videos permit highly targeted, timely messages that can extend
the creative or legal restrictions of traditional print and broadcast media to
persuasively communicate brand positioning and elicit positive judgments and
feelings. Attention-getting on-line ads and videos can drive consumers to a
brand’s website where they can learn and experience more about the brand (p.
146-147).
YouTube, out-of-home advertising, and traditional broadcast advertising must
work together to promote the product. This media convergence is best done when
YouTube is used as a stepping-stone to other mainstream media (Kim, 2012).
YouTube managers also saw the potential revenue from advertisers. With Google
Inc.’s acquisition of YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion, YouTube became even
more ad-friendly. YouTube introduced several tools to help advertisers such as Video
Identification (Video ID), a software to help copyright holders more easily find and
identify copyright infringements and ContentID, which catches copyrighted music in
videos (YouTube, 2010).
In March 2009, YouTube also started making money by selling banner
advertisements, featured videos and promoted videos. This shows a slow shift in the
evolution of YouTube “from an amateur-driven medium to a professional- dominated
channel coexists with the market expansion of the TV industry into the web” (p. 61). This
commercialization just intensifies YouTube’s identity as a very ad-friendly medium
(Andrejevic, 2009).
How to Make Video Viral
Dr. Ralph Wilson (2012) introduced six factors that influence viral marketing:
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• Offering valuable products and services
• Providing efficient means for communications
• Utilizing larger-scale spreading of information
• Making efficient use of public positivisms and behaviors, establishing
communication networks, and sharing resources of the others.
In order for a viral marketing campaign to be successful, it needs to encourage
individual consumers to forward the message to others. The Internet makes it easy to do
this. One person has the potential to easily share a message with hundreds, if not
thousands of new subjects. “The Internet allows significantly more interaction, targeted
communication, increased reach, and better evaluation of the results, all at a low cost”
(Petrescu and Korgaonkar, 2011, p. 217).
Golan and Zaidner (2008) conducted one of the first empirical studies on viral
advertising. They defined viral advertising as “unpaid peer-to-peer communication of
provocative content originating from an identified sponsor using the Internet to persuade
or influence an audience to pass along the content to others” (p. 963). They analyzed 360
viral advertisements to try and understand the creative advertising appeals and strategies
used in viral ads. They found that humor and sexuality were the main appeals (p. 963).
This agrees with Petrescu and Korgaonkar who found that most viral ads have
distinct characteristics when compared to traditional advertising, such as a catchy
message, controversy, entertainment, and higher engagement levels, usually associated
with humorous appeals (2011, p. 220).
Viral advertising is great for small business and low budget campaigns. The best
viral ads are not always the highest production quality. One of the best examples is when
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Doritos sponsored a contest where consumers could create their own 30-second spot for
Doritos. Viewers voted on their favorite one and the winning commercial aired during
the 2007 Super Bowl (XLI). A college student from a small town in Utah won the
contest (Thackeray et. Al, 2008, p. 340).
Ads have the highest impact on consumers when “they are focused on
entertaining and engaging the customer, rather than presenting a call to action.” Viral
advertising focuses on generating product or brand awareness, not on transmitting
traditional advertising messages or a list of information about the product (Petrescu and
Korgaonkar, 2011, p. 222). Viral advertisements do well because they don’t appear to be
selling anything. They aren’t pushy and they’re unobtrusive. Consumers become
voluntary viewers because they often choose to view the YouTube video advertisements.
World-renowned companies, such as Nike or Budweiser, have successfully used
viral advertising in social media, YouTube, Facebook, and blogs “consumers value the
non-commercial, non-imposed, personal sources of advertising information and peer-to-peer
communication much better than the paid ads” (Petrescu and Korgaonkar, 2011, p.
209).
Kevin Allocca, YouTube's trends manager said a video goes viral because of
tastemakers, communities of participation, and unexpectedness. First, you have to have a
key influencer (tastemaker) share the video with a large community of followers, who
then shares it with their social media community until it creates a viral effect. People
become a part of the phenomenon by spreading it. He said the most popular videos also
have a high degree of unexpectedness. Videos have to be truly unique and unexpected to
stand out (Ted Talks.com, Filmed Nov 2011, posted February 2012).
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Viral Video ROI
Because viral videos are more inclined to be entertaining then selling, the debate is
whether or not these online videos actually bring in revenue, or just promote awareness
and branding. O’Leary (2010) cites the example of Microsoft’s Project Natal, code name
for a new Xbox 360 user interface technology. Microsoft released a video about it before
the product was released. Xbox.com had more than 825,000 visitors in one week.
Project Natal also became the No. 1 search term on Google and trending topic on Twitter.
(p. 2) That’s just one example of how YouTube made the rendition of viral marketing
with videos even easier.
Success Stories
Many companies, like Microsoft, Philips, Sony, Ford, BMW, and Procter &
Gamble have seen success from viral advertising on YouTube (Van der Lans et al.,
2010). Advertising Age listed the Top Ten Viral Campaigns in 2011 as:
• Volkswagen, “The Force”
• T-Mobile, “Royal Wedding”
• Apple, “Introducing iPhone”
• Dirt Devil, “You Know When It’s
the Devil”
• Old Spice “New Old Spice Guy
Fabio”
• Old Spice, “Old Spice Man is Back”
• Fiat, “Life is Best When Driven”
• Chrysler “Imported From Detroit”
• Google, “The Web is What You
Make of It”
• Adidas, “All In”
Old Spice
One of the most successful viral video advertising stories is the Case of Old Spice.
In the early 2000s Old Spice sales were declining, especially when it came to younger
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demographics. At the same time the market for male grooming products like body sprays
and body washes were growing. P&G’s market research saw this as a huge growth
opportunity. Marketers knew they would have to reimage the brand known as “old” and
“meant for grandfathers”, to one meant for a younger generation. Their goal was to
change the brand image with men aged 18-35. But they knew that their target audience
had to include women who had a big influence in men’s purchasing of grooming products
(Mills 2012).
Proctor & Gamble started brand repositioning with ‘The Man Your Man Could
Smell Like’ campaign. The approach of ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’
campaign was to embrace the brand's heritage while updating the messaging and imagery
with more ‘swagger’ and timely humor (Mills, 2012, p. 164). They wanted someone men
and women would both like. Funny guy Isaiah Mustafa, actor and former NFL receiver,
became the face of the new Old Spice campaign. “He was a ‘ladies' man’ who was ‘OK’
for men to love as well” (p. 165). The first commercial aired during Super Bowl in
February 2010 then was put on YouTube. It got 16 million views on YouTube in the first
5 months. Market share losses were completely reversed. Sales of body wash increased
107% by July 2010 (p. 165).
The Proctor & Gamble Co. brand has continued to gain market share. As of July 18
[2010], Old Spice, with 94 million views, had become the No. 1 all-time most-viewed
sponsored channel on YouTube, Mr. Norton said. Old Spice had eight of the top 11 most-popular
videos on YouTube on July 16. In the six days following the start of Mr.
Mustafa's personalized videos, he reached more than 100 million followers. Old Spice
got more than 80,000 Twitter followers (finally ahead of Mr. Mustafa's own follower
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base of 30,000) and its Facebook fan base to 630,000. Facebook fan interaction jumped
800% since the launch of the personalized videos (Neff, 2010b, p. 2).
Not only that, but it increased the company’s web presence. “Google Trends data
show the ad has generated more search on the phrase "Old Spice" than anything the brand
has done since 2004. Unilever picked up 5 share points in the four weeks ended Feb. 21
(Neff, 2010a).
There are many other online viral advertising success stories. Ad agency Crispin
Porter + Bogusky, launched a video online advertising Burger King’s TenderCrisp
chicken sandwich called ‘Subservient Chicken’. The video was released solely online. It
got hundreds of millions of views, which means it got a far better reach than a regular
television advertisement, for a lot less money (Wasserman, 2009).
In order to promote its new Bluetooth headsets, Cardo Systems released three
low-tech videos of people trying to use power from their cell phones to pop popcorn.
The videos went viral. Cardo Systems says that in less then one month, the ads had been
viewed more than 10.2 million times. A Cardo rep said their Web site traffic double in
response to the campaign (A Viral Campaign with Pop, 2008).
Unilever is a great model for successful viral videos. In October 2006, Unilever
launch a viral video, ‘Dove Evolution’ for its Real Beauty campaign. The 75-second film
shows a time lapse of all the hair, makeup and touchups on Photoshop that are done to a
model for before the photograph of her is put on a billboard. Within ten days, the video
had more than 2.3 million views. Dove’s website also got three times the traffic after the
video than after its Super Bowl commercial (Van der Lans et al., 2010, p. 348). The video
has more than 400 million views from TV news, talk shows, and other forums. The key
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to getting the most out of a company’s online efforts is getting other websites and media
to pick up your video (Neff, 2008, p. 3).
Problems with Viral Advertising
But YouTube doesn’t always mean success. “For every big success-such as
Unilever's Dove ‘Evolution’ or Nike's Ronaldinho videos-there are thousands of
wannabes lodged deep in the long tails of viewership lists.” (Neff, 2007, p. 2). Cutler
(2009) says there is a big difference between creating a video campaign with the hopes of
going viral, and actually getting the target audience to embrace it and share it.
Cutler (2009) says one million is the magic number signaling a campaign that the
target audience embraces. Cutler also said that the videos should get of most the views in
the initial growth phase to be successful. “We've discovered viral video ad campaigns
tend to hit the ground running--they average 35 % of their total viewership during their
first week. This initial growth phase is likely to set the campaign's overall trajectory” (p.
42). We’ll define viral videos as ones that received more than a million views in one
week and videos that were shared through social media.
“Hit’s don’t always lead to revenue," said Jonah Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed, the
much-talked-bout purveyor of memes and, now, technology, politics and culture news.
"It's a paradox of online publishing that the moments that generate the most excitement
and traffic usually yield the lowest ad rates or go unsold" (Creamer, 2012, p. 4).
Advertisements have to be sponsored as a featured or promoted video to get
noticed. “As YouTube moves to monetize its traffic through paid advertising and
consumer-advocacy groups start to circle the wagons, the days of the viral-video universe
as marketers' playground could soon be over” (Atkinson, 2006, p. 1).
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There’s also a concern about stealth marketing. Gary Ruskin, executive director
of Commercial Alert, thinks viral videos blur ethical lines because viewers often don’t
know they’re being marketed to. “Viral videos are akin to social networks, which can be
deceptive because users don't know with whom they're interacting” (Atkinson, 2006, p.1).
Stealth Marketing
Unlike television advertisements, the Federal Communication Commission in
America does not regulate viral advertising. That allows the content to be free of
constraints and restrictions (Porter and Golan, 2006, p. 12). On December 11, 2006, the
Federal Trade Commission issued a statement that the relationship between sponsors and
people paid to promote products to their peers must be disclosed (Annys, 2007).
“Viral stealth marketing seeks to disguise the relationship between the
individual(s) conveying the message and the organization endorsing it. Thus, a more
subtle form of communication ensues which reaches consumers on a more personal level
to influence their buying behaviour” (Swanepoel, Lye, Rugimbana, 2009, p. 9).
Consumers seem more tolerant towards advertisements containing entertaining
content that stretches the truth. Brands like Nike, Gatorade and Levi’s have been
successful in creating videos that imitate YouTube’s amateur feel. “The advantages of
this approach: unbranded videos typically fare better than run-of-the-mill TV
commercials. The back-and-forth over authenticity fuels interest, particularly among
media-savvy young consumers” (Morrissey, 2008, p. 1).
Stealth marketing is non-transparent. And CSG multi-media websites like
YouTube and SNS like Facebook make it so easy for stealth marketers to benefit on its
appeared impartiality. Tobacco companies have been known to take advantage of viral
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stealth marketing (VSM) by promoting tobacco products without disclosing the company
(Swanepoel, Lye, Rugimbana, 2009, p.13). “The nature of VSM seeks to present the
marketing message as spontaneous and unsolicited, whilst disguising the true
promotional source behind the campaign” (p. 14).
Getting Your Video to Go Viral
Despite all the downsides of viral, how do you get your video to go viral? By
analyzing successful campaigns, Mills (2012) found four drivers of success: “the
spreadability of content based on personal factors, the propagativity of content based on
media type, the integration of multiple media platforms and the successive reinforcement
of messaging” (p. 166).
The ads have to resonate with the target audience. “A viral marketing campaign
has a greater chance of success if the marketer is able to develop marketing
communication strategies that resonate with the target group — in other words, appeals to
the key motivations for sharing information” (Ho & Dempsey, 2010, p. 1005). The ad
needs to grab viewer’s attention. Advertisers also need to use every social media platform
available and use paid media strategically to get proof of audience.
Not only does the target consumer have to see and view the ad, they have to have
a reason to want to send it to someone else. Advertisers need to post videos in a few key
places and let social networking do the rest. Van Noorta, Antheunisb, & Van
Reijmersdal, (2012) said that, “Messages are perceived as more relevant if received from
strong ties…the results imply that viral SNS campaign should be targeted at a limited
number of influential users and the campaign should be designed in such a way that
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receivers of a campaign will only forward the campaign to a few strong ties in their
SNSs” (p. 50).
As the message circulates from person to person, its distribution potential
increases exponentially within the social networks (Tuten 2008). “Videos are only
described as viral when they are able to be spread from user to user through the sending
of links or their embedding on other pages. Furthermore, the video sharing sites that
facilitate this type of transmission also frequently allow for commentary” (Gurney, 2009,
p. 10). Thurman and Lupton (2008) also found that the preferred format for online video
is 40 seconds, has light content, and is shareable.
How do these companies use viral videos to reach a target audience? When do
they receive most of their growth? Do these companies use the drivers Mills (2012)
mentioned to ensure a successful viral video campaign launch? Does viral marketing only
increase awareness or does it actually increase revenue? Is marketing most successful in
building brand awareness rather than specifically driving sales of a product? (p. 169).
Research Questions
For my thesis I want to investigate not only how viral advertising is done, but also
if it’s beneficial or not. I seek to find answers to four research questions.
• How do small companies use online viral marketing to promote their products?
• What are the benefits of viral advertising?
• Do viral video advertisements increase revenue or just brand awareness?
• How do companies get target consumers to watch and share their videos?
By interviewing representatives from Blendtec and Orabrush, two companies that are
known as pioneers of viral video marketing, I hope to test validity of claims in my
literature review such as why marketers are moving from traditional to online advertising,
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the benefits of viral advertising, suggestions on how to make a video go viral, and does
viral video increase revenue and heighten brand awareness.
Methodology
I plan to answer these questions by conducting case studies on these two
companies. Both have successful YouTube channels and they use videos to promote
products. By interviewing two experts in YouTube advertising and viral marketing, I
hope to learn how these viral video pioneers utilize YouTube and social media to create
brand awareness, promote products and reach their target audience. I plan to answer my
research questions by studying the interviews to learn how they had such successful
campaigns. The interviews will be recorded with an audio recording device. They will
then be transcribed so they’re easy to study and apply to literature review and research
questions. Transcriptions won’t be included in the report for privacy concerns.
Case Description: Blendtec’s Will it Blend? videos
I interviewed Nate Hirst, the marketing manager at Blendtec. He is in charge of
the digital marketing and advertising for the company. Blendtec is one of the first
revolutionary companies in viral video, and blenders. In 1987 the founder and CEO, Tom
Dickson, created the first “Blendtec” as a multi-functional kitchen machine for
commercial use. Soon the public caught on to the blender that could make anything from
soups to smoothies to sauces and he started selling it to regular consumers.
But what really caught the attention of the world was the web video series called
Will it Blend? In the series, Dickson blends all different things to show how good the
blenders are. He’s blended an iPhone, marbles, rake handles, lighters, golf balls, Nike
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shoes and a list of more than one hundred other items. The videos went viral and became
an international phenomenon.
As of February 8, 2013, Blendtec’s YouTube channel has 529,002 subscribers.
Hirst said there has never been a viral campaign that has lasted as long as Blendtec’s.
According to Blendtec’s website, it has been called “one of the most creative marketing
campaigns of our time. The videos showcase the strength and durability of the entry level
13AMP home blender and suggest that if it will blend marbles and rake handles, it will
certainly handle the everyday food items it was meant for.” (Blendtec.com) The series
has won a long list of awards for its viral marketing efforts (Blendtec’s Will it Blend?
Facebook page):
• 2008 CLIO Award, Bronze,
Interactive, Viral
• .net Award- Best Viral Video.
• International Academy of the
Visual Arts, Communicator Award-
Viral
• Salt Lake Magazine, Best Viral
Marketer, 2008
• Always On, Best of Broadband
Award 2007
• You Tube Awards, Fifth Place,
Best Series 2007
• Communicator Award, Gold,
Award of Excellence for Best Viral
Video
• 9th in Social Brands 100 Report
(2011)
• Communicator Award, Gold,
Award of Excellence for Best Viral
Marketing Video
• #1 Viral Ad of All Time - Ad Age
The infamous viral videos are actually a fluke. In 2006, George Wright, the marketing
director at the time, went into the demo room and saw wood chips everywhere. That’s
when he discovered that Dickson tested the durability of the blenders by blending wood
and other things. He had been testing them that way since he invented the product.
Wright had an idea to start an internal campaign for employees to see how good the
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blenders are. Hirst said “if your own employees don’t know how good your product is,
how are they going to tell the world about it?” He grabbed a camera and $50 worth of
things to blend and made a video about it. He put the video YouTube because it was a
free, easy way to host a video.
Employees loved the video and started sharing it with others. More people discovered
it, and one week later the video had gone viral with about 5 million views. “Now it seems
commonplace, but at the time nobody was doing crazy stuff like that and so I think just
the type of content that it was made it so that employees started sharing it with their
family members and it’s something that you wanted to share with everybody,” said Hirst.
Hirst said they were a very small brand before that so these videos put them on
the map. At the time, no one was getting more views than Blendtec so a lot of people
started talking about them online and offline. They got a lot of press from the videos as
well. They were on the Tonight Show, the Today Show, The History Channel and the
Discovery Channel. Even other larger companies wanted to use Blendtec’s established
brand for their marketing purposes. Large, well-established companies like Nike, Ford
and Doritos asked Blendtec to make a video for them.
Blendtec was one of the pioneers in viral video. YouTube itself was just starting
up a little bit earlier in 2006. No one had yet witnessed the power that online video had
for a company. Blendtec just used YouTube because it was free.
As of October 18, 2012, Blendtec’s YouTube channel has more than 440,000
subscribers and more than 202 million views. It’s YouTube video “Will it Blend? –ipad”
has more than 14 million views. “I think it has to do with, that it was a groundbreaking,
revolutionary product at the time. We got the one thing that everyone in the world wanted
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and destroyed it in front of their faces,” said Hirst. He gave two main reasons for the
success. First, because they created good content that people wanted to share, and second
they just happened to be one of the first companies to do something like that.
Benefits of a Viral Video Campaign
When it comes to advertising and marketing, digital is the only way to go for
Blendtec. The company has never done traditional television, radio, or outdoor
advertising. The main reason they chose digital is because it was easier to measure, easier
to reach the target audience, and cost effective. Using the correct tools is essential and
Blendtec has found the right tools in digital marketing.
Hirst compared a digital ad to a print ad. He said when you buy print ad space
from a magazine or newspaper, they will tell you how many people read their product
and the demographics of readers. But that’s about all you know. You have no idea how
many people actually saw the ad. Whereas with digital, Hirst said he knows exactly how
many people saw the online advertisement and what percent clicked on the link in the ad
to the website and the percentage of who bought a blender. He said it’s much easier to
track the return on investment.
But Blendtec spent a lot of work on the backend building a large fan base to start
out with. Blendtec has two Facebook pages, one for Will it Blend? and another for the
Blendtec blender, which is mainly recipes. Hirst said they have to hire more people
because digital advertising is more time consuming than creating a TV spot. With TV it’s
just about creating an ad then spending a lot of money to promote it. But Hirst said with
his small team they would spend far less than somebody that’s trying to do a TV or more
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traditional campaign. Social media and YouTube have made it easier to reach more
people.
Hirst also said, the real benefit of digital advertising over traditional means is the
reach you can achieve with it. He gave the example of the free pink blender they gave
away to one lucky Facebook follower in 2012. Hirst said the fans went crazy for it and
the contest received a lot of awareness. He said “to just give away a pink blender and
reach a million people is amazing. I don’t know how many people we could reach with a
TV ad. But I’m guessing it costs more than just making a pink blender.”
How Blendtec Made A Video Viral
YouTube is still a great, easy tool for companies, regardless of the proliferation of
content. Hirst said “YouTube is by far the most popular video platform and they make it
really easy to share and the way they allow people to subscribe to your channel is really
nice. Because every time we post a video every one of our subscribers gets emailed about
it.”
For its YouTube videos, Blendtec uses tools available on YouTube like
annotations where you can insert links and comments right in your videos. Blendtec can
also put links into the description before the video is even made public. Once it goes
public, YouTube automatically spreads it to all of Blendtec’s subscribers. With digital,
once you have that network built up, Hirst said you can drive a large network of people
wherever you want them to go online.
A big secret Hirst gave is to treat YouTube as more of a search engine than a
video platform. He said that Google, Yahoo and Bing are the top three search engines.
They track clips from links on their videos and on their YouTube channel page to their
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website and they “get a significant source of traffic” from those. Google also allows you
to do some targeting based on interests. Blendtec targets based on health and fitness and
if they’ve come to their website or not.
Orabrush also said they view YouTube as a social media platform and online
community; it has the same interactions as content on Facebook. You can comment on
videos and “like” or “dislike” them. You can favorite videos and add them to playlists.
All of this will show up in the feeds of people you’re connected to and they’ll see what
videos you liked, what videos you commented on.
Reaching Target Demographics
There’s a reason Blendtec has two video campaigns, one for recipes and one for
Will it Blend? videos. Hirst said a click from a recipe video is worth about 5 times more
than a Will it Blend? “The reason is because the recipe videos are aimed more at our
target audience than the Will it Blend? videos, even though they continually get
significantly more viewers.” The main problem is that the demographics of YouTube
viewers aren’t the same as Blendtec’s target audience. Most of the viewers of YouTube
videos are younger males.
The content from the recipes meets the needs of the core demographic directly,
which is adult females. Hirst’s advice to other companies is to “figure out what appeals
to your demographic and create content around them and your likelihood of success will
be far greater than if you were trying to create a viral video campaign.”
Getting Demographic to Share Content
Hirst attributes a lot of Blendtec’s success to creating content that appeals to their
targeted demographic. “The secret is good content is something somebody would want to
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share on their own. You shouldn’t have to persuade or reward someone for sharing your
content. If it’s good enough it will just automatically get shared. Our goal is to just figure
out what people like to share on Facebook or Pinterest and do our version of it and make
it better.”
Dickson on the Will it Blend? videos never says “check out our video on
Blendtec.com.” At the end, it just reads on the screen “visit us at Blendtec.com.” Hirst
said, “it’s not about pushing the product. It’s more about making something that people
want to consume.” Blendtec creates recipe videos because many people love recipes. He
said, “It’s an easy way for us to show the power of the blender and what it can do without
being really in your face.”
Another secret to getting people to share videos is to create content that’s tied to a
current event or new product. Hirst explained that they could easily get one or two
million views by blending the hottest newest Samsung device. They go many views by
blending the iPhone 5 and the Samsung 3sg at the same time.
Revenue versus Branding
Blendtec has two goals with its campaigns: create revenue and enhance branding.
The entire goal of the Will it Blend? series is to strengthen their branding. Hirst explained
they get lots of views and site visitors from this series. While the videos generate some
revenue, the goal is to create content that gets shared; content people want to talk about
so the brand gets more exposure.
When asked if these videos create revenue, Hirst had a hard time answering. He
said “We look really closely at the locations we’re in and how quickly our blenders are
selling there. We believe it’s working but it’s hard to statistically prove it.”
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There is a correlation between video and consumer purchase decisions. Hirst
said, “if somebody watches a video on your product, they’re 64% more likely to purchase
it. If you think about it that way we do quite a few paid views of our commercials that are
highly targeted, then we put these videos on specific places on our website to increase the
likelihood of somebody watching a video about us.” Retail stores are the biggest sellers
of Blendtec blenders. When they release a successful Will it Blend video, Hirst said they
don’t necessarily see a huge jump in sales, but they do see a higher request for blenders in
international markets. Hirst hopes that when people go to the stores they will think of the
videos they saw online and purchase the product. The videos are also an easy way to
prove popularity to retailers.
Case Description: Bad Breath Test by Orabrush
Orabrush is perhaps one of the greatest success stories illustrating the power of
viral video in launching a new company. Its video “Bad Breath Test – How to Tell When
Your Breath Stinks,” has more than 17 million views. It’s one of the sponsored channels
with the most subscribers on YouTube. The first video has 13 million hits and the entire
series has 30 million views of the series. Since Orabrush launched exclusively on
YouTube and Facebook, its sales soared from zero to $1 million in less than a year (Boal,
2010).
I interviewed Austin Craig, the spokesperson for Orabrush. Online YouTube
videos are what saved the company. Dr. Bob Wagstaff invented a special tongue scraper
called the Orabrush. He spent eight years trying to market it. He spent his own money on
advertising, but he didn’t know the best method. He spent $40,000 on an infomercial, but
that only sold about 100 units.
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Craig said Wagstaff knew he had a good product; he just didn’t know how to sell
it. As a last resort, Wagstaff presented his product to a market research class at the
Brigham Young University School of Business Management. He asked them to do some
market research on the product to see if it would sell online. A group of students
presented their findings to the class and concluded that 92% of people surveyed that
would want to try Orabrush, would not buy it on the Internet. Therefore, they concluded
that it was not worth marketing online.
Craig’s friend, Jeff Harmon, was in that class and saw the presentation. He
raised his hand and said “that means 8% of people on the Internet might be interested in
buying this product online. 8% of the Internet is millions of people. You’re not interested
in pursuing that market?” He then got with Wagstaff to try and promote the Orabrush.
Harmon spent nights and weekends figuring out how to market the product online
when Wagstaff had no money left for marketing. They realized they’d exhausted all the
conventional avenues. Wagstaff had either already tried them or didn’t have enough
money to try them. All that was left was social media.
It was the summer of 2009 when Harmon got the idea to make a YouTube video
about Orabrush. YouTube was just barely opening up its platform to marketers. Up until
this point YouTube had just been for uploading home videos, it had no advertising
purposes. “Jeff was one of the first people to jump in and figure out how to use that
system to sell products. Harmon got really good at it, really fast, in an advertising
ecosystem that didn’t have much competition,” said Craig.
Harmon got Craig and a couple other friends together to create a trial video. The
video starts out with Craig explaining what halitophobia (fear of chronic bad breath) is,
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how to tell if you have it, and a solution to the problem (the Orabrush). It’s all done in a
clever, witty way. Craig said he was just doing a favor for a friend and didn’t think
anything of the video or if it would even be used. Now, 3 ½ years later, Orabrush’s
YouTube channel has more than 54 million views (As of February 16, 2013) and has sold
millions of dollars worth of product from that video.
Benefits of a Viral Video Campaign
Just like Hirst at Blendtec, Craig said a major benefit of using the web to promote
your product is because it’s easy to measure. He said you can learn things like, “where
are people coming from, what do they think, where are they getting confused, what do
they not understand? What are their hang-ups and holdups? Why are they not buying the
product?”
A strong social media presence makes it’s a lot easier to talk to your customers. If
Orabrush has a question, it can just put a post on its Facebook page asking its 345,000 or
more fans. Craig said, “A decade ago you would’ve had to go to the Madison Avenue
research firm, pay them tens of thousands of dollars to get together a focus group. Now I
can just put a Facebook post and ask people, and within minutes have a critical mass of
relevant data of whatever I’m trying to find out about.”
Not only is viral advertising easy to measure, it is a lot easier to engage people as
compared to traditional advertising. “By having it be social, you facilitated a conversation
around your brand, if I watch this and I think it’s funny, I can comment right now on the
video if I think it’s really funny I can share with my friends with just a few clicks.”
He said before social media, word of mouth about television advertisements was a
lot slower. “Before if I thought something was funny or relevant or interesting, best case
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scenario is I’m going to be talking about it tomorrow to the 2 guys next to me around the
water cooler at work. Now you can share it with your 500 friends on Facebook
immediately. And if it’s that good they’ll do the exact same thing. So it makes the
playing field level.”
Social media is competitive, but if you have good content and you know your
tools it will go much further than it ever could have with traditional broadcast media. For
example Old Spice was originally a television Super Bowl advertisement. Even though it
was shown on the most-watched television program of the year, it had far better success
online.
Another advantage of viral advertising is it’s cheaper than traditional television
advertising. “To get a TV ad it’s very simple, you just have to have a ton of money and
that’s it. Pay the broadcasters enough money and you can put almost any garbage on TV
for 30 seconds,” said Craig. Orabrush didn’t have money so he says the inexpensive
YouTube platform made the company possible. He said they had to launch it the way
they did, because they didn’t have a budget. “There are several things we do at Orabrush
that are models that we figured out, and it’s not how any other company does business,
but we had to figure this out because there wouldn’t be an Orabrush without those.”
How Orabrush Made a Viral Video
Unlike the most commonly shared videos on YouTube at the time, this video had
an agenda to sell a product. But Craig said they still wanted their video to “seem as real
and as organic as a lot of the content we’d already seen on YouTube.” Harmon did a lot
of analysis on YouTube of the similarities between the most popular videos. He noticed
there were a lot of videos of just a person talking to a camera, a lot of jump cuts and a lot
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of fast-talking. The videos were also humorous. Craig said when they wrote the script,
they tried to incorporate all those elements. Looking back, Craig said the video is very
amateurish; the colors are blown out and the sound is bad. “I think that has an air of
authenticity about it that’s disarming. When they start watching that video, the bad breath
test, they don’t think they’re watching an ad,” said Craig.
The video doesn’t even mention the product until one minute and 17 seconds into
the two-minute video. Craig said “by the time the product is introduced, people are
already having fun with the video, they like the character, they’re laughing, and they’re
interested before the product is even introduced to them as an idea. So I think all of those
helped it have a viral element.”
Craig said when it comes to YouTube and other SNSs, they have to constantly be
changing the way they do things. “A company that’s growing, has to change, has to
evolve. And a company that is changing and evolving will likely be growing as well.
We’ve just continually tried new things. We’re always trying to figure out what’s a new
trick because as soon as the system changes, as soon as the platform changes, as soon as
there’s a new element involved there are new tricks to try,” said Craig.
Craig said Orabursh has what’s called the 4 C’s of YouTube to help them guide
the YouTube process: content, collaboration, consistency and calls to action. Craig said
Orabrush tries to engage with other users of social media, “You want to find the thought
leaders, you want to find the celebrities. Engage with them in a way that their fans and
their followers will see. You can exchange social clout.”
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It’s very important to put out new content consistently. Craig explained, “if
people learn that they can’t rely on you to consistently deliver, they will stop tuning in.
They will stop looking for it. They will actually forget you exist.”
Calls to action just means that you ask users to do something. If you want
subscribers, tell people to subscribe. You want them to share your video, ask them to
share it. “People respond when you give them clear instructions. By asking people to do
what you want them to do they are more likely to do it,” said Craig.
You also have to work hard to promote your video. From the beginning, every
dollar of profit from the video, they put it right back into getting more people to see the
videos. Craig said, “because we knew the more we did that, the more we invested in our
video, the broader our audience would get or sales would get. It was this virtuous sales
cycle. We did that for months and continue to do until this day.”
Reaching Target Demographics
Orabrush took advantage of YouTube’s powerful advertising system and also its
search box. YouTube can help target certain people using as much information as they
have. That way, you can target your video to be seen by a specific audience. “When we
first started with Orabrush, we hadn’t really started narrowing our target. We just targeted
anyone that had a mouth. In fact because it was a new system at the time, and there
wasn’t competition for it, the bid for certain search terms were very low.”
But using social media effectively is more about building a strong subscriber base
than creating a single viral video. “By building your subscriber base you essentially have
people who have volunteered to receive your content.” After getting success from the
first video, for a year and a half Orabrush continued to put out a funny, entertaining video
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at least once a week. That helped them build up subscribers and raise awareness, rather
than solely sell products. Craig said, “by focusing on building up our subscriber base, that
is how we can ensure that our videos will consistently get seen. We try to make it
something that people want to share.”
Orabrush not only looks at how many views the videos get, but how many shares
across different social platforms, the like to dislike ratio, and how many comments it has.
Now, from specific videos, they can even measure how many products were sold as a
result of watching that video. Craig said, “we carefully measure our sales funnel,
meaning where people come to our site from, and whether they make it all the way
through the checkout process buying a product. How much do they buy?”
Orabrush said its videos were good not only to increase straight online revenue,
but they helped the company get into more retailers because they had proof of the
popularity online on YouTube and Facebook. It helped them get into more stores.
Previously Orabush had tried getting into retailer outlets, but with little success. Craig
said after the launch of the videos they had retailers calling and saying, “listen, I don’t
know who you guys are, but I’ve got people coming into my store, asking for your
product, can I carry it?” This kind of backdoor success worked for the company.
Getting Demographic to Share Content
The best way to get people to share videos through social media is to have great
content. Another thing that Craig said always helps and is easy to do, is just ask people to
share the video with their friends, “A direct call to action like that may seem like it’s too
on the nose, it’s not. It always increases your conversions,” said Craig. It’s not just about
getting lots of views, it also increasing shares and subscribers.
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Revenue versus Branding
Orabrush’s first few viral videos were intended to sell a product. Those videos
are what saved the company because a lot of people started buying the product when they
saw the video. But now they’re in retail stores all over the country so it’s about
increasing the market size and branding the product. Craig said they create both revenue
driven and branding videos pretty consistently.
Orabrush classifies what each is going to be before it’s even produced. Craig said
they have videos specifically for brand awareness that are meant to engage the audience
and help people have positive feelings towards Orabrush. Other videos are very
specifically about the product. Craig said, “If you watch our videos it’s not hard to tell
which ones are which.”
Analysis
Do viral video advertisements increase revenue or just brand awareness?
Both Blendtec and Orabrush have videos meant to increase revenue and brand
awareness. But they aren’t intended to do both at the same time. Because both
companies focus heavily on retail, videos are intended more to create awareness so when
consumers go into the retail stores they’ll recognize the product. The purpose of the
videos is also to increase subscribers to their YouTube channel.
How do companies get target consumers to watch and share their videos?
The main thing both companies did was to have great content. When they each
launched their videos, there wasn’t a lot of competition on YouTube. Today 72 hours of
video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, so it’s easy to get buried and unnoticed. A
better option to get users to watch your video is to build up your subscriber base. After
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that, you automatically have a large audience who will see your videos when logging
onto YouTube.
Then the next thing to do to get people to share your videos is to make them
easily shareable across multiple platforms. Blendtec suggested that companies make the
videos timely, tie videos to current events and use popular search terms that people are
already searching for. Orabrush said companies can get people to share their videos just
by asking viewers to do so.
What are the benefits of viral advertising?
The biggest benefit to using viral advertising and social media is that it’s easy to
measure. There are a lot of tools available to determine not just how many views, but
where they’re viewing it from, if they go to your website, etc. With traditional forms of
advertising like television and print, it is hard to measure exactly how many people
actually see your ad. Viral advertising makes it easier to reach your targeted audience.
Not only that, but it makes it makes it easier to engage them in an ongoing conversation.
Viral advertising is also a lot cheaper than traditional methods. Although it takes more
work, it is an easily accessible option for companies that don’t have a lot of capital.
Social media takes a lot of time because you have to constantly work on it. So
there are costs associated with hiring more people to run your social media campaigns.
But that costs a lot less than creating a professional commercial and then buying
television ad space.
How do small companies use online viral marketing to promote their products?
When the two companies first started, no one else was doing what they were doing
online. Neither of them expected to get as large a reach with the videos as they did. But
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they both said that what they did when they launched their first viral campaign would not
work now. Blendtec and Orabrush were viral video pioneers. When they first launched
their videos, they had little competition. It takes a lot more effort today to get videos
noticed.
First off, no one should set out to make a viral video. It’s better to create content that
will reach a targeted demographic, rather than a video that will appeal to everyone
including millions of YouTube viewers. Social media platforms like YouTube are a great
way to share content about your product with others. As discussed above, there are a lot
of great benefits. But it should not be a company’s main focus in advertising. YouTube
videos are best used in conjunction with other, more reliable and sustainable methods to
get a consistent return.
Downsides of Viral Video
There are clear disadvantages to a purely digital campaign. A big problem,
according to Hirst, is that not everyone in Blendtec’s demographic is online. He said a
large TV campaign definitely reaches more people, and it’s easier than doing a digital
campaign. “When it comes to social you have to work really hard to create things that are
shared and spread. With a TV commercial you just pay money and people see it. There’s
a little more finesse involved when it comes to something social,” said Hirst.
Also, one of the biggest lessons Hirst learned was “to not put your faith in a platform
you don’t own.” Blendtec doesn’t have control over what Facebook and YouTube do.
Hirst said that when Facebook changed their algorithm, so that when they posted a video
they went from reaching 30,000 to only 5,000. Hirst said that they put too much faith in
Facebook and YouTube instead of building their own base in a place they control and
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manage, like a blog or website. Hirst said if you create content that your target
demographic wants, rather than just trying to attain a million views, you have a far better
chance of succeeding than with just a viral video.
The main goal should be to use these tools to get people back to your website, which
you can control. He said, “these should be looked at as tools, not the be all end all.”
Instead he suggested engaging people on Facebook and YouTube keeping and then drive
them back to your site.
Another negative thing about social media is that it’s constantly changing. This
worked for Orabrush because they jumped into social media at a time YouTube was
evolving, and figured out quickly how to make the changes work for them. Hirst said
they have to change the way they do things every six months, “YouTube, Facebook and
nearly any web platform is constantly evolving. Your platform is evolving, adapt with it
or you will be irrelevant very soon. That’s just a cold hard reality that people are going to
have to accept if people want to be anything in social media.”
Getting a viral video is not always possible, no matter how good you are. Craig
said, “I know some of the people who are the best in the world, and they can’t do that
consistently, they can not just have videos go viral every time.” There’s a lot of luck
involved with viral and there’s no guarantee your video will spread.
Another downside of viral video that Craig warned about is the fact that
companies don’t have total control over social media. And as Blendtec warned, don’t put
your faith in a platform you don’t control. Craig said that no matter how good your video
is, there will always be negative comments about it. You do have the option to sensor
comments. You have to let people be open, and you in turn have to be transparent with
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your followers. If you’re not open with your content, people won’t trust you. Craig
suggests that it’s important to engage with the negative comments and manage them.
With television ads people can make negative comments, but word of mouth can
only go so far and it’s not permanently written on the Internet. It takes longer for things
to spread around through word of mouth and it’s not as permanent. Eventually people
would stop talking about the problem. But with social media, everything is written
permanently and it’s often an ongoing conversation.
Don’t Plan a Viral Video
When asked what advice Craig had for other companies trying to do viral he said,
“Don’t set out to make a viral video. It’s like setting out to win the lottery, “You don’t
plan on paying your bills by buying lottery tickets. You need to do something sustainable.
A lottery ticket is not a strategy. A viral video is not a strategy. It’s a shot in the dark.
Sustainable campaigns are how you build a brand. Sustainable campaigns are how you
build a business.” Even though it worked for Orabrush, it’s not the best ongoing business
strategy because it’s not a consistent source of revenue. Craig admitted that even the best
viral video creators can’t always get every one of their videos to go viral.
“If you’re trying to build your brand online, he suggests using a lot of the same
content strategies you would use in traditional broadcast media. He also suggests that you
adapt your content strategy for the medium. You want brand advocates, you want people
to like your brand, and you want people to talk about your brand. The best way to do that
is by creating an ongoing conversation and continuing to put out content.
He said a viral video should never be a goal of a company. Even if it goes viral,
the company may not be able to handle that Web traffic. A single viral video isn’t enough
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to keep a business going. The marketing directors at both Blendtec and Orabrush realize
that a viral video is not a sustainable, long-term and consistent way to grow a business
and increase revenue.
Limits and Further Research Opportunities
Only two companies were interviewed for this research. These companies are
similar in their viral video success stories. They shared a lot of the same methods and
philosophies. There are other companies who could’ve been interviewed and compared
to Orabrush and Blendtec to see if they had any differing conclusions about viral video. I
strictly interviewed companies about viral advertising. But other independent content
creators could’ve been interviewed about their experience with viral video.
Both of these companies are also from Utah. There’s actually quite a strong
presence in Utah for viral video. Some of the top YouTube video creators like Lindsey
Stirling, The Piano Guys, Kid History videos, and Devin Graham are all from Utah. The
guy behind the highly revered Old Spice ads, Jason Bagley, is from Utah. The ad won
the Grand Prix at the Cannes Advertising Festival, which Bagley says is "the highest
award they give." So clearly there is a lot more to be studied about YouTube in Utah.
Conclusion
Blendtec became the infamous campaign because it was launched at the right
place and the right time. Blendtec was on the viral video scene at the right time, because
in 2006, there was little competition on YouTube. This same campaign might not have
worked as easily and been as inexpensive today.
Hirst said, today anyone can get a viral video, for the right price. He said, “your
odds of becoming viral are pretty slim. If you look at the best viral campaigns, all of them
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that I know of have been mostly paid. The concept of viral being free and easy is not true.
It’s really difficult to get something to go viral and usually you’ve got to pay a lot of
money to get it to do it for you” said Hirst.
Even though Blendtec had phenomenal success, Hirst suggested taking a more
traditional approach to advertising. “I feel bad when I tell people this because people are
so excited about viral and they want to do it so badly. I try to not be a downer, but there
are proven methods that can almost guarantee you success, and viral is not one of them.”
Hirst suggested investing your time, effort and money into something more
proven to work, like email marketing. He said it has been around a long time so no one
talks about it anymore, but it actually makes more money for Blendtec than social media
does. Blendtec has a strong email campaign where it emails out a new recipe every week
to use with the Blender. Hirst said, “It’s just that people are excited about social so you
hear about it all the time, but investing in things that are a little bit older but are proven,
and can almost guarantee the results out of is my advice to people.”
Facebook and YouTube will always have a place in digital marketing, but using
those tools is not as easy as it might sound. He said the success stories are an anomaly.
Social does have value because in a day he can drive a thousand people to wherever we
want them to go. “That’s a lot of power to hold. That’s the true value of social to me is
that once you’ve spent the time to build that network, then you have the ability to take
that network where you want them.”
Online video is an easy, cost-efficient way to market products. Social media
platforms provide a quick way to interact with customers. It’s also easily measured. It
should be an important part of any companies advertising efforts. But no company
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should intend to make a viral video. It’s not a sustainable business method. Instead,
companies should focus on creating easily shared content that appeals to targeted
demographics. Instead, use video to drive people to where you want them and to increase
brand awareness.
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Appendix A
Interview Questions
1) What were you advertising goals?
2) What factors led you try video marketing?
3) What was the inspiration for your video?
4) What other forms of advertising were you vested in?
5) Were they successful?
6) Did viral video advertising save your company money in advertising costs?
7) How did your other methods tie into your social media and video campaigns?
8) What did you expect to gain from your video?
9) Where did the inspiration from your video come from?
10) How is video advertising different from other forms?
11) What are some of the benefits of viral advertising for you?
12) How has YouTube helped you with the viral video process?
13) How was social media impacted your viral video process?
14) Did you expect your video to go viral?
15) How did you make your video easily shareable?
16) What did you do to get your video viewed?
17) What platforms did you use to share your video?
18) What did you do to encourage viewers to share your video with others?
19) What did you do to reach your target audience?
20) How did a viral video help you reach your intended audience?
21) Did you see an initial spike in views?
22) What would you have done different?
23) You already have a strong viral video web presence, what are you doing to keep
up the momentum?
24) How do you use online viral marketing to promote their products?
25) Do viral video advertisements increase revenue or just brand awareness?
26) How do you measure success of videos?
27) How do companies get viewers to share their ads?
28) Do what degree to you make your ads stealth, meaning how do you get people to
watch them without appearing to seem pushy, but still relay information about
your product?
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Appendix B
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